Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, EXCHANGES AND MARKET REGULATION—Kalshi submits perpetual U.S. equity futures contract for CFTC review, (Aug 20, 2026)
Organizations Mentioned:CME Group | CME Group, KalshiEX,
By Suzanne Cosgrove
The proposed contract appears to up the stakes in Kalshi’s tussle with CME Group, which trades S&P 500 futures, one of the derivative exchange’s flagship products.
KalshiEX LLC, a designated contract market (DCM) registered with the CFTC, voluntarily submitted a letter on Tuesday asking for the CFTC’s approval and review of a perpetual U.S. equity futures contract. Kalshi said it intends to list the contract shortly after it’s approved by the Commission.
According Kalshi’s submission, its proposed US500 contract is based on the MerQube US Large Cap Index, a broad-based securities index composed of the 500 largest companies listed and domiciled in the United States, weighted by float-adjusted market capitalization and administered by MerQube.
Similarly, the CME Group's S&P 500 futures contract is a cash-settled futures contract that allows investors to gain exposure to the performance of the S&P 500 Index, which tracks 500 of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies. S&P 500 futures were launched by the CME in 1982 and its E-mini S&P 500 futures debuted in 1997.
No fixed expiry date. A perpetual future is a cash-settled futures contract with no fixed expiration or delivery date. Rather than converging to a deliverable cash price on a stated settlement day, as traditional futures contracts do, it is fixed to a continuously observed reference mechanism, or index.
Perpetual contracts are therefore designed to be an indefinitely renewing near-dated future, allowing a market participant to hold a position open for as long as the underlying exposure persists without rolling from one expiration to the next, Kalshi said. Most trading in perpetual futures has, until now, been on offshore markets.
Competition heats up. Kalshi’s submission this week of an equity-based perpetual futures contact follows the CFTC’s May 29, 2026, approval of BTCPERP, Kalshi’s cash-settled derivative contract that references the spot price of one bitcoin.
As reported previously, Kalshi’s bitcoin product will compete with CME’s existing “smaller-sized” offerings for retail investors based on cryptocurrency values.
In response to the CFTC’s approval of Kalshi’s perpetual bitcoin product, the CME Group brought an action in federal district court on June 18, filing suit against Michael Selig in his official capacity as chairman of the CFTC, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, asking for relief from the CFTC’s order permitting KalshiEX LLC to list a “perpetual contract” as a future, rather than a swap (Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. v. Selig ).
The CME also asked the court for the vacatur of the CFTC’s policy statement concerning the listing of perpetual contracts, published in the Federal Register on June 3.
Companies: CME Group, KalshiEX,
RegulatoryActivity: CFTCNews ExchangesMarketRegulation SecurityFutures