True Perpetual Futures: CFTC Letter 26-29 Strips the Expiry From US Index Perps

US index perpetuals no longer need a fake expiry date. The CFTC's Division of Market Oversight issued Staff Letter No. 26-29, letting designated contract markets strip expiration dates from perpetual-style futures on broad-based security indexes and turn them into true perpetual futures. Cryptopolitan reports the letter is dated October 3 and was made public October 5, after Coinbase Derivatives filed the request on October 1.

For traders, the change is mechanical but it matters: a contract with no expiry and a funding rate behaves differently around rolls, basis and positioning than a contract that technically matures years from now. The relief window is short, and the first index perpetuals on regulated US venues are already lining up.

What Staff Letter 26-29 Allows

According to Securities.io, the letter grants relief from the 10 business day requirements in Regulations 40.6(a)(3) and 40.6(b)(1), so a DCM can amend existing contracts and remove the expiry right away instead of waiting out the standard review period. The same report defines the target product as a derivative with "no fixed expiration date" that relies "on a periodic funding rate mechanism" to stay in line with spot.

Until now, US exchanges listed perpetual-style futures with long-dated expirations, which Securities.io describes as running "up to 25 years." Those contracts traded like perps but carried a calendar date that the rulebook needed and nobody used.

Scope is narrow. CryptoTimes notes the relief applies only to perpetual-style futures on broad-based security indexes, not to other asset types. The no-action position expires October 20, 2026.

The Eight Conditions and the Five Day Notice

The conversion is not automatic. Securities.io lists eight conditions: amend only broad-based security index contracts, solicit feedback from open position holders, give at least five calendar days' notice, let holders close out under existing terms, provide risk disclosures, change only the expiration date, file under Regulation 40.6(a) or 40.5, and notify the Division with a compliance certification.

Two of those conditions shape the tape. The five day notice gives every holder a dated window to decide whether to stay in a contract whose terms are about to change. The close-out right means any position that does not want to roll into a perpetual can exit on the old terms during that window, which can show up as a burst of closing flow and falling open interest before the switch.

Combine the five day minimum with the October 20 expiry and the calendar is tight. Any DCM that wants to use this letter has to announce, collect feedback and file within roughly two weeks of publication.

Which Contracts Are in Line

Coinbase is the obvious first mover. Cryptopolitan names six Coinbase products affected: US500, Tech100, Defense10, AI10, China10 and Coin50.

Kalshi is moving on the same track. CoinGape reports that the CFTC approved Kalshi's S&P 500 perpetual, filed as US500PERP in August, a cash-settled contract on the MerQube US Large Cap Index with no expiration and periodic funding payments. The same report notes Kalshi already lists 19 crypto perps plus gold and silver perps, and that CME has previously sued the CFTC over its approval of crypto perpetuals on Kalshi and Coinbase.

This letter follows a template. In June, Trade Informer reported that Staff Letter No. 26-19 let Coinbase Derivatives convert 22 perpetual-style contracts and Bitnomial 16 into true perpetuals, under the same eight conditions and a relief window that ran to June 30. Coinbase argued then that delays could "force unnecessary close-outs, rolls, or liquidity fragmentation." Letter 26-29 extends that playbook from crypto to equity indexes.

What Changes for Funding and Basis

An expiring future converges to spot at maturity. A perpetual never converges by date, so the funding rate does the job: when the perp trades rich to its index, longs pay shorts, and the reverse when it trades cheap. Removing a multi-year expiry does not change the day to day behaviour much, but it makes funding the only anchor and puts the contract on the same footing as offshore and on-chain perps.

That makes cross-venue comparison cleaner. An S&P 500 perp on a regulated US venue, a broad index perp on Coinbase and an S&P 500 perp deployed on Hyperliquid through HIP-3 by trade.xyz (per AirdropAlert) now all price the same idea through the same mechanism. When funding diverges across them, it tells you which venue's participants are paying up for which side, and the spread between them is a tradable signal in its own right.

It also means US flow and offshore flow will increasingly react to the same macro headlines through the same instrument type. Watch for funding on index perps to move together after US data releases, and for the US venues to lag or lead depending on whether their sessions are open.

Tracking Index Perps Without Picking a Venue

Regulated US perps will report open interest and funding through their own channels, on their own schedules. Hyperliquid's index and stock perps are visible on-chain in real time. On Buildix, the screener at buildix.trade/screener shows open interest and funding for Hyperliquid markets, including HIP-3 builder markets such as xyz:NVDA, and the pair view at buildix.trade/pair/[TICKER] adds CVD, so you can see when the on-chain side of the trade starts to lean before regulated venues report.

The rulebook just caught up with how these contracts already trade. The positioning edge sits with whoever watches funding across all of them at once.