Useful Articles / United States
US traders can finally access perpetual futures — through a route that didn't exist before 2026
If your mental model is still "perpetuals are not available to Americans", it is a year out of date. Two things happened in 2026, and together they opened a route that did not previously exist.
What changed
The first approved contract
In May 2026 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved the first listing of a perpetual futures contract on a US-regulated exchange. Kalshi became the first CFTC-approved venue offering perpetual futures to American retail traders. Whatever you think of the venue, the significance is structural: the product now exists inside the regulatory perimeter rather than outside it.
The reclassification
Separately, the CFTC treated perpetuals as futures rather than swaps. That sounds like paperwork and isn't. The classification determines which rulebook applies, and treating them as futures opened a path for registered brokers to intermediate US retail access to foreign-listed perpetual markets — something the swap classification effectively blocked.
Kraken's onshore derivatives arm
From June 2026, US clients can trade perpetual futures through Kraken Derivatives US, which is registered with the CFTC as a futures commission merchant and is an NFA member. The contracts are listed on Bitnomial, a CFTC-regulated exchange, and cover BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, DOGE, LTC and AVAX with a funding rate that settles every eight hours. The infrastructure came from Kraken's parent acquiring Bitnomial, which brought the exchange, clearing and brokerage registrations with it.
How this differs from an offshore perpetual
It is the same shape of instrument — no expiry, funding payments keeping the contract tethered to spot — but the wrapper is different, and the differences are not cosmetic.
- Different counterparty structure. Positions clear through a regulated clearing house rather than sitting as a claim against an exchange's balance sheet.
- Different tax treatment. Regulated futures contracts are taxed differently from offshore crypto derivatives. This is worth an accountant's hour before you size a position, not after.
- Different pricing. Fees, funding and available leverage are set by a venue operating under US margin rules, so a strategy calibrated to an offshore fee schedule will not carry over unchanged.
What has not changed
Bybit, OKX and Binance still cannot serve US retail clients, and the fact that a domestic route now exists does not change their position. Reaching them through a VPN remains what it always was: a residency misrepresentation that gives the platform grounds to liquidate positions and freeze withdrawals, with no regulator to appeal to when it happens.
The point of the 2026 changes is that the workaround is no longer the only option. That is precisely why using it now makes less sense than ever.
Before you open anything
Check the current registrations yourself. The CFTC and NFA maintain public registers, and a firm offering US retail derivatives should appear in them under a name you can verify. This is a fast-moving area — the rules changed twice in 2026 alone — so a page like this one is a starting point, not a substitute for the register.