CFTC approves Kalshi’s perpetual future on U.S. large-cap stocks

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has approved Kalshi’s perpetual futures contract on the MerQube US Large Cap Index, giving the regulated exchange a route into continuous U.S. large-cap equity exposure. The agency’s product database recorded the approval on Oct. 3, according to Altcoin Buzz.

The contract is identified in approval coverage as US500PERP, while KalshiEX’s August filing used the official product name US500, or the MerQube US Large Cap Index Perpetual Future. It follows Kalshi’s August submission of the US500 contract, which we covered at the time.

KalshiEX, a CFTC-registered designated contract market, submitted the product for review and approval on Aug. 18. Its filing said it intended to list the contract continuously shortly after Commission approval, although the evidence does not establish that trading has begun.

The product is cash-settled and has no fixed expiration or delivery date. It gives traders long or short exposure to the index without having to roll positions from one dated futures contract into the next. Kalshi’s filing says periodic funding payments between premium and discount sides are designed to keep the contract’s mark aligned with its continuously observed reference.

The underlying index comprises the 500 largest companies listed and domiciled in the United States, weighted by float-adjusted market capitalisation and administered by MerQube. The index is calculated in real time during regular U.S. equity-trading hours, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern, but not outside those hours, on weekends or on reference-market holidays.

US500 is designed to trade 24 hours a day, five days a week, on the schedule associated with U.S. equity-index futures. Each contract has a multiplier of $1 per index point, meaning a one-point change in the index changes a contract’s value by $1. The contracts will be cleared through Kalshi Klear, Kalshi’s CFTC-registered derivatives clearing organisation.

The approval is a further move beyond Kalshi’s event-contract business and its earlier crypto perpetuals into a conventional equity-market reference. Kalshi had already received CFTC approval for a Bitcoin perpetual future in May.

The CFTC’s May 29 policy statement described perpetuals as derivatives that use periodic funding rates, rather than a fixed expiration, to maintain relative price parity with an underlying spot price. The agency said products tied to asset classes outside its Bitcoin order should receive case-by-case review under Regulation 40.3, and identified equity securities and narrow-based security indexes among areas requiring independent analysis.

Kalshi’s filing argued that a regulated designated contract market adds trade surveillance, know-your-customer checks, risk-based margin, central clearing and disciplinary procedures to an activity that has historically been concentrated on offshore, unregulated venues. It also said dated equity-index futures would remain useful where market participants need term-structure exposure, calendar spreads, expected-dividend or financing treatment at particular tenors, or settlement on a specified date.