Coinbase has entered the regulated digital asset derivatives market with its new CFTC-approved perpetual futures contracts for Bitcoin and Ethereum. The launch, which began trading on 21 July 2025, aims to serve US traders with a product structured for compliance. The perps expire every five years and settle their funding rate every twelve hours—adapting the traditional perpetual format for US regulatory acceptance.
According to trading technology provider Devexperts, this development reflects the rapid growth of the perp market, which is increasingly outpacing spot digital asset volumes. Coinbase’s product is designed to bring this high-volume trading back onshore, giving US traders legal access to derivatives they previously had to obtain via offshore exchanges or decentralised platforms.
Perpetual futures allow investors to speculate on digital asset prices without owning the underlying tokens. They differ from CFDs in that they are exchange-traded and more transparent, allowing for centralised liquidity and clearer oversight—an essential factor in their regulatory acceptance by the CFTC.
Bitnominal previously launched the first US-approved bitcoin perpetuals earlier this year, although those are only accessible to institutional players and are settled in bitcoin.
According to CoinGecko, the top 10 centralised exchanges recorded $58.5tn in perp trading volume in 2024, up from $28.8tn the year prior. Grayscale data cited by Unchained showed $10.17tn traded in the first half of 2025 alone, more than triple the $3.06tn seen in spot markets.
With Devexperts monitoring this shift closely and regulatory frameworks taking shape, perpetual futures are set to become a core instrument in US-based digital asset trading.
Read the full blog from Devexperts here.
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