U.S. just legalized crypto perps — long Coinbase as the first-mover winner
The main U.S. derivatives regulator just gave the green light for crypto perpetual futures contracts to trade on American exchanges for the first time. Coinbase and Kalshi are among the first platforms approved to offer these products, which until now only existed on overseas exchanges.
Idea
Perpetual futures are the most popular crypto trading product in the world — trillions trade every month — but Americans have been locked out of them on regulated exchanges. Now the CFTC is letting Coinbase offer them right here in the U.S. This means a huge new revenue stream for Coinbase, which already has tens of millions of verified users who previously had to go offshore for these products. When a major new product category opens up and one company has first-mover advantage on a regulated platform, the stock tends to reprice higher as analysts model the new income.