Coinbase files for 24/7 equity perpetuals
Coinbase asks the SEC to list equity perpetual futures trading around the clock, a bid to move stock exchanges onto crypto market structure.
Coinbase has asked the SEC to approve equity perpetual futures that trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The filing would let the exchange list contracts tracking U.S. stocks with no expiry date and no daily close, structured like the crypto perpetuals that already dominate volume on offshore venues.
The regulatory ask
Coinbase's request targets a product category that barely exists in U.S. regulated markets today. Perpetual futures on equities settle continuously against a funding rate rather than expiring on a fixed date, the same mechanic that powers most leveraged crypto trading.
The exchange is asking the SEC to treat these as approvable derivatives rather than as a structural workaround of exchange trading hours.
- Coinbase filed the request with the SEC seeking approval for round-the-clock equity perpetual futures, per The Block.
- Crypto perpetual futures already trade with no close and no expiry, a structure Coinbase wants extended to single stocks.
- The NYSE and Nasdaq still run cash equity sessions for roughly 6.5 hours a day, five days a week.
- Coinbase already runs 24/7 crypto derivatives trading through its CFTC-registered Coinbase Financial Markets arm.
What the filing signals
The obvious read is that Coinbase wants a new listed product. The filing is really an attempt to rewrite when and how U.S. equities trade at all.
A perpetual future on a stock lets traders take equity exposure at 3 a.m. Sunday with leverage, funding rates, and no dependence on a specialist opening a cash market Monday morning. That doesn't require Nasdaq to extend its hours.
It routes the exposure through a derivatives wrapper Coinbase already knows how to run. If the SEC approves this, the pressure to modernize equity market structure shifts from exchanges to a derivatives overlay sitting outside it.
Coinbase built its Coinbase Financial Markets arm specifically to hold CFTC registrations for exactly this kind of product. The company isn't asking permission to experiment. It's asking to formalize a market it can already build.
The stakes for exchanges
Approval would put Coinbase in direct structural competition with the legacy exchanges on the terrain those exchanges control least well: continuous trading.
NYSE and Nasdaq have talked about extended hours for years and moved slowly, constrained by clearing, settlement, and member-firm systems built around a defined session. A perpetual future sidesteps all of that because it never settles into the underlying stock.
If retail and institutional flow migrates to a 24/7 derivatives wrapper, exchanges lose price discovery during the hours that matter most to a global, always-on market.
Signals to track
- Whether the SEC opens a comment period or issues a denial, and how it characterizes the product's classification.
- Whether CME or Cboe file competing proposals for equity perpetuals once Coinbase's request becomes public record.
- Trading volume and open interest data if Coinbase Financial Markets lists a pilot contract following any approval.