U.S. regulators just legalized the most popular crypto trading product — long Coinbase as the first-mover winner
The main U.S. derivatives regulator just cleared the way for crypto perpetual futures contracts to trade on American exchanges for the first time. Coinbase is one of the first platforms approved to offer them.
Idea
Perpetual futures are the most popular crypto trading product in the world — but until now they've only existed on offshore exchanges like Binance. The CFTC just changed that by giving U.S. platforms the green light to offer them domestically, and Coinbase is first in line. This is a big deal because it opens up a massive new revenue stream: perpetual futures generate enormous trading fees since they're used around the clock by both speculators and hedgers. Coinbase stock tends to move sharply on regulatory wins, and this is arguably the biggest one yet for a U.S. crypto company. The timing also matters — it signals that Washington is leaning into crypto regulation rather than cracking down, which lifts a cloud that's hung over the whole sector.