Coinbase and Kalshi bring perpetual crypto futures to U.S. traders

Coinbase and Kalshi have pulled one of crypto’s most aggressive trading products into the U.S. regulated market, a notable break from the offshore venues that long defined perpetual futures. Coinbase said U.S. customers would be able to trade CFTC-regulated perpetual futures through Coinbase Financial Markets starting July 21, 2025, and Kalshi said on May 29, 2026 that it had launched perpetual futures and become the first company in American history to offer them.

Perpetual futures, often called perps, do not have a traditional expiration date, so traders can keep positions open without rolling contracts forward. That structure helped make them a staple of offshore crypto trading, where flexibility and high leverage drew active traders. Coinbase has described its U.S. perpetual-style futures as contracts that closely track spot prices, offer leverage, and stay within CFTC rules. Its U.S. lineup includes cash-settled contracts and 24/7 trading, with nano Bitcoin and nano Ether among the first offerings.

The immediate effect is access. U.S. customers who want a crypto derivatives contract that behaves more like the offshore version can now use regulated domestic venues instead of looking abroad to platforms such as Deribit. For sophisticated traders, that means direct exposure, leveraged bets and the ability to hold positions indefinitely inside the U.S. system. It also means the product arrives with clearer rule sets, cash settlement and exchange oversight, but not with the elimination of risk. Leverage can magnify losses as quickly as gains, and a contract that never expires can encourage traders to stay in positions longer than they otherwise would.

Kalshi said the launch was its first product beyond event contracts and part of its evolution into a broader derivatives exchange. That expansion comes as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has recently sharpened its attention on prediction markets, issuing an advisory that flagged misuse of nonpublic information and fraud in event contracts traded on KalshiEX LLC. The regulatory backdrop matters because it shows how quickly a new onshore market can attract scrutiny once it starts resembling the offshore crypto world it is trying to replace.

The larger significance is not that perpetual futures suddenly became safer or less speculative. It is that two U.S.-regulated platforms, one crypto-native and one built around prediction markets, are now competing to house leverage-heavy trading inside American rules. That is a real shift in market structure, and it could mark the start of a broader fight over where the next phase of crypto derivatives will be traded, and who gets to police them.