Arthur Hayes is flattered as Coinbase defends US stock perps in court

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes told Cointelegraph he is "flattered" that Coinbase now defends stock perpetual futures in a US federal court. Hayes ran BitMEX in 2016, when it launched the first bitcoin perpetual swap, a contract with no expiry date.

“When we launched the perpetual swap at BitMEX in 2016, Washington's reaction was less than warm. Ten years later, Coinbase is in federal court defending the right to offer them on US stocks.”

— Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, interview with Cointelegraph

Quote source: Cointelegraph, interview with Arthur Hayes, 13 November 2026.

He summed it up in one line: "Imitation is the sincerest form of regulation."

Who is suing whom

The Capital Markets Alliance Association, whose members include Cboe and Citadel Securities, sued the CFTC in the Southern District of New York to overturn its approval of the contracts. The group argues that a contract with no expiry is a security-based swap. Those face tighter limits on retail trading and cannot list on exchanges the CFTC oversees.

On Monday six firms asked the court to accept a brief on the CFTC's side: Coinbase, Kalshi, Kraken parent Payward, DRW, Jump Trading and Paradigm. They argue that a security future needs no fixed expiry date, and that the SEC was "at the table from the very start", The Block reported. The court accepted the brief on Tuesday.

The SEC also opposed a temporary halt to trading. It added that it is still reviewing the exchanges' listing rules and did not say how it would classify the contracts.

What the judge has said so far

On 3 November Judge Valerie Caproni refused the alliance's request for a temporary restraining order, because it had not shown likely irreparable harm. She also found that the alliance was likely to win its claim that the CFTC exceeded its authority.

The contracts went live after the CFTC's review period ran out on 2 November without a vote, as we wrote about Kalshi's perpetuals. In its Tuesday filing the alliance cited about $375 million in 24-hour notional volume on Kalshi's stock perps soon after launch, and argued that traders were moving business away from stock exchanges.

Why traders follow the case

A stock perp tracks a share price and lets you trade it with leverage without owning the share. Binance and Bybit already list them offshore. Wojciech Kaszycki, strategy adviser to BTCS SA, told Cointelegraph that if the CFTC loses, traders will move to offshore and decentralised platforms: "The product doesn't die; it just changes address."

If you hold stock perps on a US venue, follow the court docket. The judge has already voiced doubts about the CFTC's authority, and a final ruling against the agency could end trading on these venues.

The case is pending, and the court has made no final ruling. This report is for information only and does not recommend trading any contract.