The chairman of the CFTC clarifies the controversy over perpetual contracts, stating that the lack of a fixed expiration date does not affect the futures attributes, and the funding rate mechanism helps with price anchoring

Mike Selig, the Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), posted on the X platform to clarify several misunderstandings in the market regarding perpetual futures contracts and to address the controversy arising from the recent approval of related contracts by the CFTC. Mike Selig stated that the Commodity Exchange Act and relevant CFTC rules do not explicitly require that "futures contracts" must have a fixed expiration date or delivery date. Since Congress has not clearly defined this term, the identification of futures contracts is primarily based on judicial precedents and CFTC interpretations, and a fixed expiration date is not a necessary condition.

In response to the claim that "the CFTC-approved BTCPERP contract allows U.S. users to use 250 times leverage," high leverage is not a characteristic of the perpetual contract structure itself, but rather a feature of the previous offshore trading model. Perpetual contracts regulated by the CFTC will adhere to the same leverage limits as other regulated futures products.

Regarding the criticism that "the CFTC did not provide opportunities for industry participation and feedback," the CFTC publicly solicited opinions on "perpetual contracts" and "24/7 trading" in April 2025 and received over 100 responses from industry participants, including several CFTC-registered entities. Additionally, concerning the view that the funding rate mechanism is believed to incur high costs and induce undesirable market behavior, after considering the costs of opening positions and rolling over traditional term futures contracts, the annualized holding cost of the perpetual contract funding rate is roughly equivalent to that of traditional futures. The funding rate mechanism actually helps maintain price anchoring.