Coinbase’s 57 Certified Equity Perps Face Unresolved Court Challenge

Coinbase Derivatives has 57 equity perpetual contracts marked “Certified” in CFTC records dated Nov. 5, 2026, but those listings do not establish that trading has begun. They also sit alongside an unresolved court challenge to the regulator’s authority to treat no-expiry single-stock contracts as security futures.

The CFTC’s certified-product records cover 55 single-stock contracts and two ETF contracts, SPY and QQQ. The distinction for prospective users is practical: a certified listing is evidence of a regulatory filing status, not proof of customer access, executed trades or a settled legal framework.

What the certification establishes

In a Nov. 3 statement, CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said equity perpetuals on individual securities could begin trading on designated contract markets that are also SEC notice-registered national securities exchanges for security futures. He said the products were deemed approved under CFTC Regulation 40.3 as security futures and would fall under the Commodity Exchange Act, federal securities laws and both agencies’ frameworks.

That is the regulator’s stated position and the venue condition it describes. It does not independently establish a Coinbase launch. The Coinbase product pages reviewed for this article identify the contracts as “Certified” and “Security Futures Product”; they do not establish actual trading activity.

The underlying mechanics also differ from buying shares. Coinbase’s Nov. 5 AAPL contract filing describes a cash-settled derivative with no expiration date. Holding that contract is not ownership of Apple stock.

The AAPL submission provides a concrete example of the proposed design: hourly funding with a ±0.10% cap, no funding during a market closure, pause or halt, and trading from Sunday at 8 p.m. to Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern Time. Those are the filer’s contract terms, not independently observed trading conditions. The schedule is not 24/7, and this example does not establish the terms of every other listing.

Extended trading hours and the kind of instrument being traded are separate questions. Our earlier explanation of stocks’ move toward 23/5 trading examines the hours question; these filings concern derivatives linked to equities.

The court denied an immediate halt—and questioned the legal basis

The legal record cuts in two directions. In a Nov. 3 order in Capital Markets Alliance Association v. CFTC, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied a temporary restraining order because the plaintiff had not shown irreparable harm.

At the same time, the judge found the plaintiff likely to succeed on its claim that the CFTC lacked statutory authority to classify no-expiry single-stock perpetuals as security futures. The order said the products appeared more like swaps. The suit challenges applications by Coinbase Derivatives, KalshiEX and Bitnomial.

Neither part of the order can be read alone. Denying the temporary restraining order did not resolve the statutory challenge in the CFTC’s favor. The likelihood-of-success finding was provisional, made at the temporary-restraining-order stage; it was not a final merits judgment or an injunction.

SIFMA separately called for broader SEC and CFTC review and public input on Nov. 3. The trade group argues that no-expiry products differ from traditional single-stock futures and raises concerns about liquidity, price discovery, capital formation, investor protection and manipulation. Those are SIFMA’s objections, not established market harms or agency findings.

What remains unverified

The material reviewed does not establish a Coinbase launch date, customer eligibility, trading volume or actual leverage and margin requirements. It also does not establish a final court ruling on the classification question. Certification, operational availability and a final legal outcome require separate evidence.

This article’s reporting cutoff is Nov. 9 at 8:28 p.m. Eastern Time, equivalent to Nov. 10 at 01:28 UTC and 10:28 a.m. in Seoul. The Nov. 3 order set a preliminary-injunction reply deadline of Nov. 10, subject to change; that U.S. deadline had not elapsed at the cutoff. The reviewed material does not provide a complete current docket, and this article makes no claim about a reply filing or court action after that time.

The next substantive checks are any subsequent court order, primary-docket filings affecting the injunction request, and an official Coinbase notice establishing launch and access conditions. Until those are verified, the 57 certified listings answer a narrower question: which contracts appear in the CFTC’s records, rather than whether a live market or a final legal settlement has followed.

Featured-image credit: Editorial illustration of a generic financial district: CRYPTO MAIN NEWS / OpenAI. It does not depict a Coinbase venue or an actual event.