US Crypto-Linked Perpetual Futures Coming Soon, CFTC Chair Says

The US’s top derivatives regulator plans to allow perpetual futures contracts for cryptocurrencies within weeks, bringing onshore a trading instrument that has until now existed almost entirely on offshore exchanges.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig said Tuesday at the Milken Institute’s Future of Finance conference that the agency would create a framework for the contracts, which let traders hold leveraged positions on crypto prices indefinitely without an expiration date. Selig said the US needed to recapture liquidity that has migrated to platforms in Asia, Europe and the Bahamas.

“We need to have that liquidity here in the US ...