Coinbase seeks SEC greenlight to list equity perpetuals

Coinbase, the largest U.S. based crypto exchange, is seeking to list equity products as perpetual gain momentum.

The company filed a notice registration form with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week to get sign-off to begin listing equity perpetuals, said Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad on Thursday in a post on X. 

"Equity perps have proven demand internationally, and we’re excited at the prospect of a regulated pathway for  U.S. investors," he said.

Next, Coinbase would need the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's sign-off, Shirzad added. Coinbase launched perpetual futures in March, allowing people outside the U.S. to trade those assets on a set of specific stocks including Apple Inc., Microsoft, NVIDIA and Amazon.

Perpetuals, or perps, are a type of futures contract that don't have an expiration date and allow people to bet on the price movement of assets without owning them directly. Much of the market currently operates on offshore exchanges that are not regulated in the U.S.

In May, the CFTC began allowing bitcoin perpetual futures contracts to list in the U.S. when its staff greenlit KalshiEX and Coinbase to list the products. A month later, the CFTC released a request for comment on crude oil perpetual contracts and 24/7 trading.

One exchange in particular has been thrown into the spotlight — Hyperliquid Hyperliquid (HYPE). That platform became popular among crypto derivatives traders and came into the spotlight last month at the White House when President Donald Trump said that CFTC Chair Michael Selig was working to bring the perpetual trading platform Hyperliquid into the U.S. in a "fully compliant and legal fashion."

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Hyperliquid Labs is seeking to go onshore in the U.S. through a deal with Payward, crypto exchange Kraken's parent company.

Corrected at 8:15 p.m. UTC to describe products more accurately