Cboe and Citadel-backed group sues CFTC to block stock perpetual futures

A group backed by Cboe and Citadel Securities filed suit against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on the same day the agency announced it had approved perpetual futures tied to US stocks, according to Cointelegraph. The challenge landed alongside the approval itself, setting up an immediate courtroom fight over a product that had just cleared its first regulatory hurdle.

The filing's core argument is jurisdictional: the group contends these contracts are security-based swaps, which puts them in the Securities and Exchange Commission's lane rather than the CFTC's, per the court filing. That's a direct attack on the CFTC's authority to greenlight the products at all.

Perpetual futures — contracts that never expire — are a staple of crypto trading, where they let traders hold leveraged positions indefinitely instead of rolling into a new contract each month. Extending that structure to US equities would be a fresh frontier for the format.

The suit arrived with unusual speed, targeting the approval order the day it surfaced rather than waiting for the products to trade. The CFTC has not publicly responded to the challenge.

Where it goes next depends on how a court reads the line between CFTC-regulated futures and SEC-regulated security-based swaps — a boundary that has fueled years of turf battles between the two agencies. For now, the approval stands on paper, and the fight over whether it survives is just beginning.