CME Sues CFTC Over Perpetual Contracts; Non-US Volume Hits $60T

CME Group challenges CFTC approval of crypto perps, citing regulatory misclassification. Non-US perpetual contract volume reached $60 trillion last year, highlighting market scale.

Woofun AI reports that CME Group filed a lawsuit against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Chairman Mike Selig, contesting the regulator's authorization for Kalshi and Coinbase to offer cryptocurrency perpetual contracts. CME asserts that the CFTC misclassified these products by ignoring the requirement for expiration dates in futures, arguing that perpetual contracts allow leveraged positions without time limits and harm CME’s longer-dated business.

Non-US perpetual contracts recorded $60 trillion in trading volume last year. Demand surged during the Iran conflict for 24-hour crude oil perps on offshore DeFi platforms like Hyperliquid. Kalshi reported over $1 billion in volume within a week of its product launch, while the CFTC advances the US market via case-by-case reviews rather than new rulemaking.