Terry Duffy, chairman and chief executive of CME Group, spoke to CNBC’s Fast Money about suing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the approval of perpetual futures:

#NEW @CMEGroup to sue CFTC over the approval of perpetual futures as soon as tomorrow.

Outgoing CEO Terry Duffy speaks to Fast Money exclusively on the lawsuit and his decision to retire. https://t.co/g6Kjz4c5bC

— CNBC's Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) June 17, 2026

 

On 29 May 2026 the CFTC said in a statement that it had approved the listing of the BTCPERP contract, a perpetual contract that references the spot price of bitcoin, as futures listed on designated contract market KalshiEX.

Duffy said at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange and Trading Conference on 4 June 2026 that the 40.3 ruling requires a full review, allowing the industry to comment on novel or complex products.

“They did the review in less than 24 hours, which is a 40.2 self-certification for a novel and complex product which troubled me,” Duffy added. “I’ve had a lot of conversations with the agency so I’m really disappointed.”

The Commodity Exchange Act defines futures as a contract with a delivery or an expiration date, according to Duffy. A perpetual contract never ends, and tracks the spot rate of the underlying asset through a funding rate, which Duffy argued is a swap rather than a future and not suitable for institutional hedging.

He is also concerned that perpetual contracts in the European Union trade between 20 to 250 times leverage with an auto-liquidation model, and said this is not sustainable.

“I’ve spent 30 years of my career building, nurturing, and bringing in retail participants into the market with tools and education so it is sustainable,” added Duffy. “I really believe the 2007 housing market has been supplanted by the speculation market, including prediction markets, and this could be a disaster waiting to happen.”

Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, a venture capital firm specializing in the cryptocurrency and blockchain, said: 

CME now suing one of their primary regulators, the CFTC, for having approved perps on crypto. CME argues that these products should not have been approved, as they are "useless for institutional investors" and cause retail investors to assume "excessive levels of risk."

CFTC… https://t.co/PApNpuUQE4

— Haseeb ＞|＜ (@hosseeb) June 18, 2026

Qureshi said: “CFTC claps back: “Rather than compete in the marketplace, the CME has decided to undertake lawfare against the agency and the Trump Administration’s pro-innovation agenda,” a CFTC spokesperson said in a statement. “Incumbents fear the future and having to compete on a level playing field. We look forward to addressing their claims and dismissing this frivolous lawsuit.”

This is literally the inverse of the Coinbase SEC lawsuit. Coinbase sued the SEC for the right to exist, while CME is suing their regulator because they don’t want their competition to exist.”

Christopher Perkins, chief executive of 250 Digital Asset Management, said:

Disruption is hard if you are an incumbent. pic.twitter.com/8STvYMLk2P

— Christopher Perkins 🦅🌎⚓️NYC (@perkinscr97) June 18, 2026

If @CMEGroup is successful in the courts and perps are deemed “swaps” versus futures in the U.S., then the biggest impact will be on the margin period of risk (MPOR). By law, swaps require 5 days of risk whereas futures generally require 1 day of risk.

This rule never ever made…

— Christopher Perkins 🦅🌎⚓️NYC (@perkinscr97) June 18, 2026

Perkins said: “This rule never ever made sense to me, and makes less sense now. Collateral should be a function of product liquidity (eg how quickly can you liquidate a defaulter’s positions) and how accurate (or stale) the collateralization is. In trad markets, collateralization can be quite stale as the market sleeps on weekends and holidays. Perps typically don’t have this problem—especially when supported by tokenized collateral. So a swap designation would likely keep perps offshore because >2x margin would be needed for basic compliance.”

Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, general counsel of Starkware, the developer of a cryptographic zero-knowledge proof system that seeks to improve scalablity in blockchains, said:

Tbc, I don't think they're going to be successful and I hope they are not – the CFTC's position on perps is sound.

— Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos (@kkirkbos) June 18, 2026