Coinbase Seeks US Approval for Single-Stock Perpetual Futures

Coinbase has asked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to approve single-stock perpetual futures for US traders, a filing made through Coinbase Derivatives that would let American investors bet on individual equities around the clock without ever owning the shares. The request, filed on Friday, September 18, 2026, is pending review and marks one of the most ambitious attempts yet to bring a crypto-native trading structure into the heart of US equity markets.

What Coinbase Is Proposing

Perpetual futures are a familiar instrument in crypto markets: contracts with no expiration date that let traders hold leveraged positions indefinitely, as long as they can cover margin requirements. Coinbase has offered stock perpetuals of this kind outside the United States since March, giving international users exposure to names like Apple and Nvidia. US persons have so far been explicitly excluded from that product.

The new filing aims to change that. According to the disclosed plans, Coinbase intends to launch with an initial slate of 50 to 60 stocks, reportedly including Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and Nvidia — some of the most heavily traded equities in the world. Because the product would trade continuously, US users could take positions on these companies outside standard exchange hours, a stark departure from the 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. rhythm that has governed American stock trading for generations.

This is not Coinbase’s only regulatory move this month. On September 1, the company filed a Form 1-N with the Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking to register as a national securities exchange for security futures. That filing is a necessary companion piece: single-stock futures touch both derivatives law, overseen by the CFTC, and securities law, overseen by the SEC, so Coinbase needs sign-off from both agencies before it can bring the product to US markets.

Why This Matters for Investors and Markets

If approved, the filing would extend a distinctly crypto-market structure — leveraged, always-on, no-expiration contracts — into the regulated world of US equities. That is a novel category. Traditional futures on stocks and indexes exist, but they expire and settle on fixed schedules tied to conventional market sessions. A perpetual contract on Apple or Tesla shares would behave more like a crypto derivative than a classic equity future, letting retail traders open and close leveraged positions at 3 a.m. on a Sunday if they choose.

That has real implications for retail access to leverage. Perpetual futures require margin, and losses can compound quickly when a position is leveraged and markets move sharply overnight, when liquidity is typically thinner and price gaps are more likely. Regulators reviewing the filing will need to weigh those risks against the demand for extended-hours trading that has grown steadily as retail brokerages have already begun offering limited overnight sessions on regular stocks.

The move also fits into a broader pattern this year of US regulators cautiously opening pathways for crypto-style products even as comprehensive legislation stalls in Congress. The CFTC and SEC have both taken incremental steps — from limited crypto pathways opened after the Senate blocked the CLARITY Act to a separate SEC exemption that could open the $77 trillion stock market to tokenization. Coinbase’s dual CFTC-SEC filing effort sits squarely inside that trend: agencies moving product-by-product rather than waiting for Congress to write comprehensive market-structure rules.

For Coinbase itself, approval would mark a significant expansion beyond its core crypto exchange and custody business, positioning the company as a bridge between digital-asset trading infrastructure and traditional equity exposure. It would also test whether the exchange’s compliance and risk-management systems, built for crypto volatility, can satisfy regulators accustomed to the guardrails of conventional stock markets.

What Comes Next

Approval is not guaranteed, and there is no indicated timeline for a CFTC decision or for the SEC’s review of the Form 1-N exchange registration. Readers should watch for:

• Whether the CFTC formally accepts or requests changes to the September 18 filing
• Progress on the SEC’s review of Coinbase’s national securities exchange registration
• Confirmation of the final list of 50 to 60 stocks if the product moves toward launch
• Any margin, leverage or trading-hour restrictions regulators might impose as conditions of approval

The broader regulatory backdrop also bears watching, including related efforts such as the SEC’s move to open the door to onchain trading of real US stocks and how exchanges reacted after regulators sidestepped the stalled CLARITY Act. Together, these developments suggest US financial regulators are testing how far crypto-derived market structures can be grafted onto traditional securities before Congress settles the underlying legal framework.

Source: Cointelegraph

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.