CBOE is weighing a move into crypto perpetuals after a surge of activity around Kalshi’s newly approved products has shaken up the futures landscape.
According to a June 23 Wall Street Journal report, CBOE Global Markets has begun studying whether to convert its continuous Bitcoin and Ether futures into perpetual contracts. Rob Hocking, CBOE’s global head of derivatives, said the exchange is exploring the option following the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s decision to allow Kalshi — a prediction market operator — to list crypto perpetual futures. Hocking gave no timeline for any changes.
CBOE only launched its continuous BTC and ETH futures in December, offering contracts with expirations as long as 10 years. The regulator’s green light for Kalshi and the rapid uptake of Kalshi’s products — more than $8.5 billion in trading volume within weeks of launch, per the WSJ — have prompted major incumbents to reassess product design and competitiveness.
Not everyone welcomes the shift. Earlier this month the Chicago Mercantile Exchange sued the CFTC, arguing that permitting Kalshi to list perpetuals violates federal law and has inflicted “textbook competitive injury” on established futures exchanges. The dispute underscores the stakes: perpetuals, popularized by BitMEX, are now the dominant form of crypto derivatives trading because they never expire and use periodic funding payments to keep contract prices aligned with the underlying asset.
Perpetuals aren’t just attracting interest among U.S. exchanges. Coinbase recently rolled out perpetual futures tied to stock indexes for eligible U.S. traders, giving leveraged exposure to sectors such as AI, defense and Chinese equities. Coinbase International also launched round-the-clock futures on U.S.-listed stocks in March for eligible non-U.S. traders. BitMEX has pointed to growing demand for commodity perpetual swaps as oil and gold volatility picked up.
Decentralized venues remain a major center of perpetual activity. DeFiLlama data cited by the WSJ shows DEXs processed more than $22.5 billion in perpetual futures volume over the past 24 hours and roughly $663 billion across the prior 30 days, with Hyperliquid accounting for the bulk of that flow.
With regulated U.S. exchanges now seeing a potential regulatory path to offer perpetuals, competition is intensifying across traditional futures operators, crypto-native platforms and decentralized markets as firms jockey to capture trading volume that has historically resided largely outside the U.S.
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