CME Group is getting ready to sue its main regulator over one of crypto’s most popular products: perpetual futures. Outgoing CEO Terry Duffy said the exchange will take the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to court over its recent decision to allow regulated crypto perps in the United States.
CME Moves Against CFTC Over Perps
Duffy told CNBC that CME “will sue the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over its approval for perpetual futures” and said he is “always ready for a good fight.” He explained that CME plans to file the case “tomorrow,” making the challenge one of his last major moves before he steps down as chief executive next year. The lawsuit targets a series of CFTC actions that opened the door for onshore bitcoin perpetual contracts.
In late May, the CFTC approved KalshiEX’s BTCPERP contract, which it described as “a perpetual contract that references the spot price of bitcoin, as a futures contract.” On the same day, the agency also issued an interpretive letter and a no-action position that allows Coinbase to route U.S. users to Deribit-style perpetual products through a registered affiliate. These steps created the first fully regulated path for U.S. traders to access crypto perps on CFTC-supervised venues.
Swaps Debate and Benchmark Rights
Duffy argues that the CFTC put perpetual contracts in the wrong legal category. On CNBC’s “Fast Money,” he said “perpetual futures are actually swaps under the Dodd-Frank Act,” and added that this view will be “the basis of the CME’s lawsuit.” Under Dodd-Frank, swaps face different rules for clearing, reporting, and venues than ordinary futures, and they sit under a separate part of the CFTC’s rulebook.
He also pointed to CME’s commercial deals with benchmark providers. Duffy stated, “We hold exclusive license to every single one of the [benchmark providers]. Therefore, all of these would need to go through CME, irrespective of the perpetual nature.” According to a summary of his comments, he further said that if regulators treat perps as swaps, then “all perpetual contracts must go through CME regardless.”
Perpetual futures are crypto-native derivatives that never expire and use funding payments instead of roll dates, giving traders continuous exposure to prices. The CFTC’s Kalshi order accepted BTCPERP “as a futures contract,” while its broader policy statement signaled that other digital commodity perps can follow the same path when spot markets are “sufficiently deep and liquid.”
READ MORE: SpaceX Stock Price is Diving Today: Is This the Start of a Bear Market?
