Kalshi Seeks SEC and CFTC Clearance for Stock Perpetual Futures

Meta description: Kalshi filed to list perpetual futures tied to 58 stocks and ETFs, drawing SEC and CFTC review and Citadel Securities scrutiny.

Tags: Kalshi, SEC, CFTC, Citadel Securities, Coinbase, Bitnomial

Market platform: Kalshi

Category: Regulation

Kalshi is asking U.S. regulators to let it list perpetual futures tied to 58 individual stocks and exchange-traded funds, including Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, SPY and QQQ. The exchange filed a proposed rule change with the SEC on September 18, 2026, while submitting the product to the CFTC under the Commodity Exchange Act.

The proposal would move Kalshi further beyond its original prediction-market model and into regulated derivatives products linked to public equities. It also puts the exchange in a more complicated oversight lane than its existing Bitcoin, gold and silver perpetuals, because the underlying assets are securities rather than commodities.

What did Kalshi file?

Kalshi filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission under Section 19(b)(7) of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 19b-7, according to the SEC notice published for the September 18, 2026 proposed rule change. The filing says Kalshi also submitted the rule change to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Section 5c(c) of the Commodity Exchange Act.

The proposed contracts are security futures products structured as perpetual futures. Unlike a traditional futures contract, a perpetual contract does not expire on a fixed date. Instead, its price is kept near the reference asset through funding payments between long and short positions.

Kalshi’s SEC filing states that the proposed rule change would become effective on November 2, 2026, or on a later date approved under CFTC regulations. That date gives regulators and market participants a defined near-term milestone, but the filing also leaves room for the review process to move under the applicable CFTC framework.

The list of proposed underliers centers on highly traded U.S. equities and ETFs. The filing names contracts tied to major technology stocks and broad market funds, including Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, SPY and QQQ. Kalshi’s filing materials describe 58 proposed stock and ETF perpetual products.

Why does this involve both the SEC and the CFTC?

The dual-agency structure follows from the product design. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange, but the proposed perpetuals reference securities and ETFs, bringing SEC market-structure rules into the review. The SEC filing frames the proposal as a rule change for security futures products, while the CFTC submission addresses the exchange’s obligations under the Commodity Exchange Act.

That is different from Kalshi’s earlier commodity-linked perpetuals. The CFTC approved Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual contract on May 29, 2026, under Section 5c(c)(4) of the Commodity Exchange Act and Commission Regulation 40.3, according to the agency’s approval order. Kalshi later received CFTC approval for GOLDPERP and SILVERPERP on September 3, 2026, according to CFTC product records, and launched the gold and silver products on September 10.

The stock proposal raises a harder oversight question because the same economic exposure can connect to stock-market trading, options markets, corporate disclosure events and exchange halts. That is why the SEC filing and the CFTC submission matter together: the contract would trade on a CFTC-regulated venue, but its reference assets sit inside the SEC’s securities-market perimeter.

What are the proposed contract terms?

Kalshi’s filed specifications set a minimum customer margin of 15.50% of current market value and size each contract at 100 shares. Trading would run from Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time through Friday at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time, creating a near-24-hour weekday market for equity-linked exposure.

Settlement would reference the 4:00 p.m. Eastern equity-market close. The contracts would include daily funding payments, with a funding deadband of 0.002% and a maximum funding magnitude capped at 2.00%. Clearing would run through Kalshi Klear, Kalshi’s affiliated clearinghouse.

The listing standards in the filing set several eligibility thresholds for the underlying security. A stock would need at least 20 million shares of deliverable supply, a market capitalization of at least $100 billion, average daily transaction value of $450 million over the prior six months and a public float of at least 7 million shares.

Those thresholds would limit the initial product set to large, liquid names. They also show how Kalshi is trying to frame the proposal as a product for deeply traded underliers rather than a path to perpetual contracts on thinly traded or volatile smaller issuers.

How does the filing address trading halts?

Kalshi’s SEC filing proposes Rule 14.13, which would require the exchange to halt trading in a Perpetual SFP during a regulatory halt affecting the underlying security. That provision is central to the market-structure question because one of the main risks in equity-linked perpetuals is whether derivatives trading could continue while the underlying stock is paused.

The proposed halt rule does not settle every surveillance or enforcement question. It does, however, directly addresses the basic halt-coordination issue by tying trading in the perpetual security futures product to a regulatory halt in the reference security.

Other concerns remain broader. A near-24/5 stock-linked derivatives market would create trading windows outside regular equity hours. It would also require regulators and exchanges to monitor activity across the underlying stock, options markets and the perpetual contract. Those are the types of cross-market issues that make the product more complex than a commodity-linked perpetual.

What is Citadel Securities objecting to?

Citadel Securities has raised concerns with the SEC and CFTC about equity-linked perpetuals trading under a CFTC-regulated structure, according to reporting on the firm’s letter to the agencies. The objections center on market surveillance, insider-trading enforcement and the interaction between stock-market safeguards and related derivatives markets.

The core concern is that stock-linked perpetuals could create a parallel venue for trading exposure to public companies, including during hours when the underlying equity market is closed. For securities-market participants, that raises questions about how regulators would detect and police trading based on material nonpublic information, and how they would connect activity across stocks, options and CFTC-regulated derivatives.

Citadel Securities is not a neutral observer in market-structure fights. The firm is one of the largest U.S. equity market makers, so changes that create new venues for stock-linked trading can affect its business. That does not make its concerns irrelevant, but it does mean its position should be read as both a regulatory argument and a market participant’s intervention in the shape of a new product category.

Are other exchanges pursuing similar products?

Yes. Coinbase and Bitnomial also moved on stock-linked perpetual products around the same September 18, 2026 filing date. Bitnomial’s proposal sets a 15.25% margin requirement, compared with Kalshi’s 15.50%, and also contemplates near-24/5 trading.

The cluster of filings means regulators are not reviewing Kalshi in isolation. They are being asked to decide how equity-linked perpetuals should fit into U.S. market structure across multiple exchanges and product designs. That could make the decision more important than any single contract list.

For prediction-market operators, the filings also show how quickly the category is blurring into broader derivatives competition. Kalshi built its public profile around event contracts on elections, economic indicators and other binary outcomes. Its perpetuals strategy points toward a wider exchange business, competing not just for event-contract volume but for traders seeking regulated access to continuous leveraged exposure.

What happens next?

The next concrete date in Kalshi’s filing is November 2, 2026, when the proposed rule change is scheduled to become effective unless the process moves to a later date allowed under CFTC regulations. Before then, the SEC and CFTC will have to consider the proposed stock-linked contract design, the halt rule, the margin framework and the objections raised by market-structure participants.

The decision will matter beyond Kalshi. If regulators allow the contracts to move forward, stock perpetuals could become a new onshore derivatives category tied to the most liquid U.S. equities and ETFs. If they slow or block the proposal, the agencies will be drawing a line around how far CFTC-regulated venues can go in listing products linked to SEC-regulated securities.

For now, the immediate question is whether the SEC and CFTC let Kalshi’s 58 proposed stock and ETF perpetuals become effective on November 2, 2026, or require changes before equity-linked perpetual futures can trade on a regulated U.S. venue.