Kraken launches bid to bring CFTC-regulated perps to market

The contracts will be listed on Bitnomial, a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)-regulated exchange recently acquired by Kraken’s parent company, Payward.

John Palmer (pictured), global head of derivatives at Kraken, said: “US traders have been waiting for a regulated, domestic way to trade the product that defines global crypto derivatives markets. Perpetuals, spot, margin and CME-listed futures now sit on one interface, and that changes how US clients build and manage crypto positions.”

The CFTC on Friday issued a policy statement laying the groundwork for unique review of perps due to the novelty in price convergence with certain underlying assets’ spot prices.

Kraken said clients will be able to trade a suite of crypto currencies, including BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, DOGE, LTC and AVAX.

“Kraken intends to expand the contract set and product functionality, including broader collateral options, over time.”

The digital asset exchange said the contracts feature continuous pricing, no expiration and an eight-hour funding rate, matching the conventional structure for crypto perpetuals, within the same futures wallet as Kraken’s existing CME-listed contracts, so traders can manage CME futures and crypto perpetuals positions side by side.

The contracts are offered on Kraken Pro through NinjaTrader Clearing, doing business as Kraken Derivatives US, a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant.

In parallel, derivatives exchange Coinbase on Friday said US clients can now access global crypto perps and options on futures, without offshore workarounds, through the CFTC-regulated futures commission merchant.

Kraken, in February, launched tokenised equity perpetual futures contracts with regulated benchmarks, available for trading within its regulated derivatives environment on Kraken and Kraken Pro interfaces.

The US trading venue in November 2025 allowed its European clients to use cryptocurrencies as collateral for trading over 150 perpetual futures markets.