Coinbase Becomes First US Exchange Allowed to Offer Global Crypto Perps Trading
The CFTC allowed Coinbase to offer customers access to crypto perpetual futures, opening the door for U.S. traders to use the offshore perps market through Coinbase’s Deribit platform. Perpetual futures are highly leveraged derivatives with no expiration date, offering outsized gains but also rapid liquidation risk. Coinbase has not yet chosen which assets to list, though the CFTC’s approval covers all “digital commodity” perps on Deribit, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Dogecoin, and TRUMP. The move follows months of CFTC संकेत that it would permit crypto perps in the U.S. and comes after Coinbase requested a no-action letter. The market is enormous: crypto perps volumes recently topped $588 billion in a month. The CFTC also approved Kalshi to launch a U.S.-based Bitcoin perpetual futures product. Other exchanges are likely to seek similar treatment soon.
