Coinbase Derivatives, LLC filed SR-COIN-2026-002 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on 18 September 2026. The proposed Chapter 12 would govern cash-settled futures on individual U.S. equities and ETF shares, including perpetual single-stock futures with no fixed expiry.
This is a filing, not an approval or launch. The document says the proposal was filed concurrently with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has not approved it. The rules therefore are not yet effective.
How the contracts would work
The contracts would settle in cash and would not deliver securities or convey ownership, voting or dividend rights. Perpetual contracts would use funding payments, with the method and interval specified in each Product Appendix. Regular trading is proposed from Sunday 8:00 p.m. to Friday 5:00 p.m. Eastern, subject to holidays and maintenance.
Daily settlement would normally use a one-minute VWAP around 4:00 p.m. Eastern, with midpoint-TWAP and index-price fallbacks. Index methods must be transparent, objective and resistant to manipulation.
Eligibility and safeguards
An underlying security must be Exchange Act-registered and NMS-listed. Proposed initial tests include more than 20 million shares of estimated deliverable supply, at least $100 billion in market capitalization and $450 million in six-month average daily trading value. A newly listed security may use a $1 billion one-month ADTV test. Maintenance tests include $50 billion in market capitalization and $200 million in quarterly ADTV.
Trading must stop when the underlying security is under a regulatory halt, and market-wide circuit breakers apply. Corporate Action Circulars would address splits, dividends, rights, spin-offs, mergers, ticker changes and delistings. If an underlying becomes unavailable, the contract may be halted, cash-settled at a published fair value and delisted.
The proposal includes a 200,000-contract position limit on a 100-share-equivalent basis and disclosures covering cash settlement, absence of stock ownership, funding, extended-hours liquidity, corporate actions and termination. Machine-readable settlement, index, mark, funding, basis, volume, open-interest and aggregate-position data are proposed for the first 18 months after launch. Margin is addressed in a separate filing and should not be treated as final here.
Impact on traders and intermediaries
Perpetuals reduce contract rolls but make funding, index methodology, extended-hours liquidity and corporate-action adjustments central risks. They are not substitutes for share ownership. Traders would also need to verify the qualified intermediary providing access, customer-asset protections and halt or emergency-settlement procedures.
For FCMs, introducing brokers and technology providers, approval could widen regulated derivatives access while adding suitability, disclosure, real-time risk, cross-market halt and corporate-action obligations.
TraderVote view
The important issue is the boundary between securities and commodity-futures regulation. Coinbase Derivatives is a CFTC-designated contract market, but that status does not automatically approve each new product.
What is confirmed is a public rule text with detailed controls. What is not confirmed is final CFTC approval, a launch date, initial symbols or final margin terms. Describing the filing as a completed approval would overstate the evidence.
Sources
SEC Release 34-106420 / SR-COIN-2026-002, 18 September 2026, accessed 20 September 2026: https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/coin/2026/34-106420_0.pdf
SEC Coinbase Derivatives rulemaking index, accessed 20 September 2026: https://www.sec.gov/rules-regulations/self-regulatory-organization-rulemaking/coin
SEC Form 1-N notice, 3 September 2026, accessed 20 September 2026: https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/other/2026/34-106295.pdf
CFTC Designated Contract Markets registry, accessed 20 September 2026: https://www.cftc.gov/IndustryOversight/IndustryFilings/TradingOrganizations?col=Status&dir=ASC
Coinbase company context, 8 May 2026, accessed 20 September 2026: https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coming-june-14-perpetual-style-equity-index-futures
Reuters, 3 September 2026, accessed 20 September 2026: https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/coinbase-files-for-sec-approval-to-offer-equity-perpetuals-4888603
Written independently by Hengyuan from public information verifiable as of 20 September 2026. Final status and terms depend on subsequent regulatory documents. This article is not investment or legal advice.
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