Hyperliquid Pushes Regulators to Legalize Equity Perpetual Contracts

The regulatory status of perpetual contracts—derivatives that track an asset's price without an expiration date—remains a major point of friction in U.S. financial law. While these instruments have become a cornerstone of global crypto trading, they currently lack a definitive classification as either futures or swaps. In an August 24 comment letter, the Hyperliquid Policy Center argued that cash-settled equity perpetuals, which mirror the mechanics of traditional futures, should fall under the joint oversight of the SEC and CFTC.

Central to the proposal is the argument that the absence of a fixed expiration date does not disqualify a product from being a future. Hyperliquid points to the CFTC’s May approval of a Bitcoin perpetual as a precedent, where the agency designated the instrument a contract for the sale of a commodity for future delivery. By adopting the security futures framework, regulators could provide a legal pathway for these products, which currently process trillions in notional volume annually on platforms like Hyperliquid. The group suggests that this approach would harmonize oversight, allowing exchanges to list these assets while maintaining the flexibility to treat bespoke, non-standardized derivatives as swaps.