CFTC chair Mike Selig says Hyperliquid-style perps can come onshore under tailored U.S. rules

CFTC chair Michael Selig is signaling that perpetual futures products similar to those offered by offshore venues like Hyperliquid can be brought into the U.S. under a tailored, regulated framework. In a long-form interview with Bankless, Selig highlighted the CFTC’s recent approval of the first U.S.-listed Bitcoin perpetual futures contract on a CFTC‑registered exchange as a landmark, and stressed that additional perpetual products can be listed via the agency’s existing self‑certification process so long as they meet core requirements such as having a ready market and not being readily susceptible to manipulation. He contrasted this approach with the much higher leverage and lack of direct regulatory oversight often seen offshore, noting that U.S. rules typically constrain leverage to roughly 5–10x and impose robust exchange, clearinghouse, and risk‑management obligations. Selig framed his goal as bringing products that already exist offshore—like Hyperliquid‑style crypto perpetuals—into a U.S. market structure with clear rulebooks, core principle compliance, and active CFTC supervision, rather than trying to suppress them entirely. He indicated that the commission is working to open a formal path for more “genuine professional” crypto perps in the coming weeks as part of a broader effort sometimes described as “Project Crypto,” which includes work on tokenized collateral, DeFi, prediction markets, and potentially equity perpetuals that would require joint oversight with the SEC. For U.S. exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini and newer derivatives venues, this creates a prospective onshore route to list perp markets that compete with platforms like Hyperliquid, but within a tightly defined framework on leverage, market integrity, and customer protections—potentially shifting some trading volume back from offshore venues into regulated U.S. derivatives markets.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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