CFTC Moves to Kill CME Lawsuit Over Kalshi’s Bitcoin Perpetual Futures

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has asked a federal court to throw out CME Group’s legal challenge to the derivatives regulator’s approval of cryptocurrency perpetual futures on grounds that the exchange failed to meet the legal prerequisites to bring the case.

The motion, filed Sept. 2 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, came in response to CME’s June 18 complaint over the CFTC’s approval of KalshiEX’s BTCPERP contract on May 29. The BTCPERP contract, based on Bitcoin’s spot price, is authorized for trading as a futures contract on the CFTC-registered designated contract market Kalshi.

CME argues that crypto perpetuals should be considered swaps under both the Commodity Exchange Act and the Dodd-Frank Act and is seeking vacatur of both the Kalshi approval and a CFTC policy statement allowing designated contract markets to list similar digital-asset perpetuals as futures.

The CFTC did not ask the court to adjudicate the legal classification dispute. Instead, it argued to dismiss the case on the basis that CME could not show that it would be harmed by competition. The CFTC argued that, even if both CME and Kalshi operate designated contract markets, CME is allowed to submit contracts for approval to trade perpetual futures under the same framework as Kalshi.