Kraken Files for CFTC-Regulated US Perpetual Futures Through Bitnomial

Kraken Files for CFTC-Regulated Perpetual Futures in the US Through Bitnomial

Kraken’s parent company Payward has filed to launch CFTC-regulated perpetual futures for eligible United States traders through Bitnomial, the designated contract market the firm acquired, in what may be the most consequential US derivatives market-structure filing of the year. The proposed suite covers perpetual contracts on BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, and ADA, according to the company’s announcement, and would give American traders something they have never had: fully regulated access to crypto’s most heavily traded instrument on domestic soil.

The timing of the filing, disclosed September 12, lands amid a broader regulatory thaw toward perpetual futures in the United States. It follows the CFTC’s approval of Kalshi’s BTCPERP in May, which established a precedent for event-market venues listing crypto perpetuals, and a June lawsuit by CME against the CFTC and Acting Chairman Caroline Pham over the commission’s handling of perpetuals regulation, which signaled how much commercial gravity is behind the product category. Kraken’s move now puts a major exchange group directly into the race.

Why Bitnomial Is the Key to the Structure

The regulatory architecture matters as much as the ambition. Bitnomial is a CFTC-registered designated contract market, acquired by Payward, which gives Kraken a fully licensed derivatives venue without having to build one from scratch or wait for new registrations. Rather than offering offshore-style perpetuals through an international entity, as nearly every major competitor does, Kraken is routing the product through a regulated US market structure.

That distinction shapes everything downstream: who can access the contracts, how they are listed, what surveillance and risk rules apply, margin standards, and what disclosures traders receive. It is the difference between a product that US institutions can touch and one they must avoid, and in the current environment, where compliance fencing is the primary competitive moat in crypto derivatives, that difference is the entire game.

The filing is not the finish line. The proposed products remain subject to a 30-day self-certification review process with the CFTC before any contracts can go live. Until that window closes without objection, the filing is a proposal, not a product, and Kraken has been careful to frame it that way.

Perpetuals Are Where the Volume Lives

The commercial logic here is unambiguous. Perpetual futures, contracts with no expiry that rely on funding-rate mechanics to track spot prices, dominate global crypto trading. By most industry measures, perpetuals account for the large majority of total crypto derivatives volume, with hundreds of billions in daily turnover flowing through offshore venues like Binance, Bybit, and Hyperliquid. The last 30-day decentralized perpetuals volume on Hyperliquid alone has been measured at over 220 billion USD, a figure that dwarfs most regulated US crypto venues’ entire spot books.

American traders participate in that market today, of course, but through regulatory gray zones, offshore access routes, or simply by going without. A CFTC-regulated listing would create a compliant path with none of the counterparty and jurisdictional ambiguity. For institutions, hedgers, and market makers, it converts a structurally inaccessible instrument into an onshore, surveilled, bankruptcy-remote product.

The asset selection is also telling. BTC and ETH are obvious anchors with the deepest liquidity and institutional acceptance, but SOL, XRP, and ADA extend the suite into large-cap altcoin territory. If regulated US perpetual exposure becomes available across five major assets, offshore derivatives venues could face the first genuine onshore competition for American flow in the product category they dominate.

A Field That Is Getting Crowded Fast

Kraken is not alone in the pursuit. Kalshi has expanded from event contracts into financial perpetuals, listing a growing catalog of stock and commodity perps and openly boasting a pipeline of crypto-adjacent contracts. Coinbase has pursued derivatives expansion through its own registrations and acquisitions. Bybit announced 24/7 foreign-exchange perpetuals for non-US markets. And Polymarket launched leveraged perpetuals across dozens of markets. The common thread is that every major platform has concluded perpetuals are the product gap in US-regulated crypto, and the race to fill it is now fully underway.

Payward’s filing also extends an eventful stretch for the Kraken parent. Nasdaq recently invested 100 million USD in Payward at a 21 billion USD valuation as part of a tokenized stocks collaboration, and the firm settled with the SEC over its staking program in earlier enforcement actions. Adding a derivatives leg through Bitnomial rounds out a strategy that now spans spot trading, custody, tokenized equities, and regulated futures.

What to Watch

Three things determine whether this filing matters. First, the self-certification window: if the CFTC raises objections or requires modifications, the timeline stretches and the calculus changes. Second, the final contract terms: leverage caps, margin models, and funding mechanics will determine whether the regulated product can compete with the liquidity and flexibility of offshore venues, because a 2x-leverage regulated perp will not pull flow from a 100x offshore one. Third, follow-on listings: if BTC perps clear, expect a cascade of issuers filing for everything from ETH to long-tail assets, the same way Kalshi’s May precedent seeded a dozen imitators.

The Bottom Line

Kraken’s filing is the clearest sign yet that perpetual futures are coming to regulated US markets. The instrument that built the offshore crypto derivatives industry is being rebuilt inside the American regulatory perimeter, venue by venue, filing by filing. Nothing trades today, and the 30-day review could still complicate things. But the direction is no longer in doubt, and the exchange that crackes the code on compliant US perpetuals will have a product no American rival has ever legitimately offered.