By Joe Light
U.S. crypto firms for the first time will be allowed to offer crypto asset "perpetual" futures to investors, a top regulator said Friday, opening the door to one of the most popular -- and most risky -- investments in digital-asset markets.
The announcement should be lucrative for trading platforms like Coinbase Global and Robinhood Markets.
Crypto perpetual futures, often called "perps," let investors speculate on the future prices of digital assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum without holding them directly. Unlike traditional futures, they don't have an expiration date, and some trading platforms have let investors use them to leverage their position by 10 or even 50 times.
Coinbase shares on the announcement rose 4.5% on Friday to $190.37. Shares of Robinhood were up about 8.4% to $92.
The potential for extreme gains -- and losses -- has made crypto perp trading even more popular than spot trading worldwide. For example, on Binance, the largest global crypto exchange, spot trading volume over the past 24 hours totaled about $7.9 billion, compared with $43 billion in derivatives trading volume.
On Friday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it would allow prediction market Kalshi to list and trade U.S. Bitcoin perpetuals. It also issued a so-called no-action letter to Coinbase to allow its U.S. customers to access options and perpetuals it already offers through a foreign platform, giving Americans access to its already existing global market.
"We're bringing proven global products under American regulation which is exactly how we make the US the global crypto leader," wrote Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal in a post on X, calling the approval a "massive first for the industry."
Other U.S. companies that have said they're exploring offering perpetuals include trading platform Gemini and Robinhood, which already offers the product in Europe.
"The one message of the day is it's just a massive market opportunity," said Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev, who noted there's an opportunity for Coinbase and other firms to capture a portion of the trading volume that thus far has happened offshore.
Approving U.S.-based perpetuals is the latest move by President Donald Trump's administration to foster the crypto industry in the U.S.
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins over the past year have pulled back sharply on enforcement actions against crypto firms, sought to undo some of the penalties the firms received under President Joe Biden's administration, and approved new crypto products for trading, among other changes.
Despite those changes, the prices of Bitcoin and other crypto tokens have fallen since Trump's inauguration. Since Trump took office, Bitcoin is down about 30% to $74,000.
Write to Joe Light at joe.light@barrons.com
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May 29, 2026 12:54 ET (16:54 GMT)
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