Kalshi Wants to Bring 24/7 Tesla and Nvidia Perps to the U.S.
Kalshi is seeking CFTC approval for about 60 perps on stocks and ETFs, with Tesla and Nvidia as the first names. The move sharpens the debate over SEC and CFTC oversight.
Key Takeaways
- Kalshi wants to launch perpetual futures on stocks and ETFs in the U.S., including Tesla, Apple, and Nvidia.
- If the regulator approves it, these would be the first regulated single-stock perps in the United States.
- The application adds to the debate over oversight between the CFTC and the SEC, especially around market integrity and after-hours trading.
Kalshi wants to offer perpetual futures on stocks and ETFs in the United States, with names like Tesla, Apple, and Nvidia. If the regulator approves it, these would be the first regulated single-stock perps in the U.S. That would put one of crypto trading’s best-known products right next to the stock market.
What Kalshi Wants to Launch
According to The Wall Street Journal, the prediction-market operator wants to seek approval for about 60 perpetual futures on individual stocks and exchange-traded funds. Perps are contracts that let traders bet on a price going up or down, often with borrowed money, and without a fixed expiration date. Instead, traders pay each other periodic amounts to keep the price close to the underlying value.
Kalshi already got CFTC approval in May for a bitcoin perpetual contract. The regulator called it a futures contract at the time, but also warned that the same setup would not automatically work for other types of assets. That makes the new application an even tougher test of how far this product can be pushed in the U.S.
Regulation Remains the Bottleneck
The core of the debate is who should oversee this: the CFTC or the SEC. For a contract on a publicly traded stock, the obvious question is whether it falls under futures rules or under oversight of the underlying shares. Citadel Securities said in a letter to both regulators that products tied to U.S.-listed companies should remain under SEC oversight.
The concerns are mostly about market integrity and supervision. A perp on Tesla or Nvidia can keep trading overnight and on weekends, while the stocks themselves are closed then. That can give a live read on what traders think a company is worth, but it also raises questions about information advantages and coordination between markets.
Why This Matters for Crypto
For crypto traders, this matters because perps have been one of the biggest products in the sector for years. BitMEX made them popular, and newer venues like Hyperliquid now let traders take positions on bitcoin and hundreds of tokens at any time. If a regulated U.S. version for stocks and ETFs goes through, it could show how far a familiar crypto product can be expanded beyond the crypto market itself.
The broader U.S. debate over market structure is also part of this. The question of who gets oversight over new trading formats has long run through the preparation of new CFTC rules, as Washington still looks for a clear split between the regulators.
