Coinbase asked the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to list perpetual futures on individual U.S. equities, contracts that would trade around the clock. The company made the request public Thursday.
Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad announced the filing on X. If approved, it would push the largest U.S.-based crypto exchange’s derivatives ambitions into traditional stock markets. Perpetuals on equities currently trade mostly on offshore venues beyond American oversight. “Equity perps have proven demand internationally, and we’re excited at the prospect of a regulated pathway for U.S. investors,” Shirzad wrote.
For domestic investors, a regulated pathway means one thing: trading the contracts through Coinbase instead of the offshore exchanges that handle most of today’s volume.
The company filed a notice registration form with the SEC earlier this week. Approval from the commission is only the first gate. A separate sign-off from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would still be required before any product goes live, Shirzad said. Two regulators stand between the filing and a tradeable contract.
Perpetuals are futures contracts with no expiration date. A holder keeps a position open as long as margin allows, betting on price movement without owning the underlying asset. The bulk of that market today runs on exchanges outside U.S. jurisdiction.
The structure is new for American equities. Not new for Coinbase. The company launched perpetual futures in March for users outside the U.S., covering Apple Inc., Microsoft, NVIDIA and Amazon. Those products remain the only live version. The new filing targets the domestic market.
Shirzad did not say which equities the U.S. perpetuals would cover. The filing set no review timeline.
Regulatory ground has been shifting for months. In May 2026, CFTC staff cleared KalshiEX and Coinbase to list bitcoin perpetual futures in the United States. That opened the first domestic pathway for such contracts. A month later, the agency released a request for comment on crude oil perpetual contracts and 24/7 trading. The step could shape a broader rule and signaled that regulators are weighing round-the-clock markets well beyond bitcoin.
Coinbase’s equity bid is not the only onshore move in play. Hyperliquid (HYPE), a platform popular with crypto derivatives traders, is pursuing a parallel path. Bloomberg reported this week that Hyperliquid Labs is seeking to enter the U.S. market through a deal with Payward, parent company of crypto exchange Kraken. At the White House last month, President Donald Trump said CFTC Chair Michael Selig was working to bring Hyperliquid into the U.S. in a “fully compliant and legal fashion.”
Neither the SEC nor the CFTC has said publicly how long either review might take. For now, Coinbase’s international equity perps are the closest thing to what the filing describes.
