Hyperliquid Policy Center backs CFTC in fight over perpetual futures, asks court to drop CME's case

The Hyperliquid Policy Center accused CME Group, the world’s largest derivatives marketplace, of stifling innovation and urged a court to dismiss the exchange’s lawsuit against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

On Thursday, HPC filed an amicus brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia supporting the CFTC after CME sued the federal agency in June over allowing perpetual futures to trade in the U.S.

In its brief, HPC, represented by Elizabeth Prelogar, who served as Solicitor General during the Biden administration from 2021 to 2025, says that the case could have broader consequences.

"Once a titan of innovation, CME now advances a novel theory of standing under which an incumbent exchange is injured whenever its regulator permits a new product that it chooses not to offer," Prelogar said. "If CME prevails, every product that the CFTC approves will invite litigation from incumbents who prefer the status quo, and the pace of progress in the U.S. futures markets will slow to a crawl."

Fight over perps

Perpetuals are a type of futures contract that don't have an expiration date and allow people to bet on asset price movements without owning the asset directly. They've become increasingly popular in crypto derivatives trading, particularly on the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid (HYPE), which President Donald Trump has said the CFTC is working to bring onshore to the U.S. in a "fully compliant and legal fashion."

The CFTC approved the first perpetual futures for Kalshi and Coinbase last month, opening the door for those assets to trade in the U.S. for the first time.

In its initial complaint, the CME Group said perpetuals would directly compete with its offerings and cause injury to CME. CEO Terrence Duffy has also been critical of perpetual futures, calling them a "disaster waiting to happen and has said that perpetual futures should be classified as swaps under the Dodd-Frank Act, a federal financial regulation law passed following the 2008 financial crisis.

But HPC says that CME lacks standing when it comes to competition and injury.

"The CFTC order it challenges does nothing of the kind," HPC said. "It enlarged the market rather than dividing it, opening exchanges to new market participants who would not have traded in dated futures contracts. And it added no new competitors to the marketplace, because Kalshi has been a CFTC-regulated exchange since 2020."