The regulator that just cleared crypto perpetuals for US trading now wants to know whether the same structure can work for crude oil. The 67 questions in the request for comment highlight how many issues remain unresolved.
On May 29, the CFTC approved the first regulated bitcoin perpetual futures in the United States. Kraken launched its own CFTC-regulated perps on June 15. The regulated perp market, long confined to offshore venues, is moving onshore.
Then, on June 22, the CFTC published a 22-page request for comment asking a very different question: can the same structure work for crude oil? The answer, implicit in the document itself, is that nobody knows yet — and the regulator wants industry input before it has to decide.
.@CFTC Seeks Public Comment on the Extension of Standard Futures Contracts to 24/7 Trading and on Perpetual Contracts Referencing Physically Delivered or Storable Energy Commodities: https://t.co/370qzh0SQJ
— CFTC (@CFTC) June 22, 2026
Why Energy Is a Different Problem
The request is part of a broader push toward continuous markets. CME Group switched on 24/7 trading for its crypto futures at the end of May; LMAX added gold to its perpetual futures lineup with round-the-clock XAU/USD trading in February.
The CFTC's approval of bitcoin perps rested on a specific argument: bitcoin has a deep, continuous, globally distributed spot market that produces a reliable reference price at every moment of the day.
That reference price is what makes a perpetual's funding mechanism work. Without it, there is no reliable anchor for the periodic payments that keep the contract price close to the underlying.
Crude oil does not have that. The physical market for WTI or Brent operates during defined windows. Prices are assessed, not continuously traded. When markets close on weekends, there is no observable cash price to feed a funding rate calculation.
The CFTC wants to know: what happens to a funding rate when the reference market is closed? Who handles a margin call on a Saturday, when Fedwire is not operating? Could a weekend perp price move transmit into the benchmark prices that commercial hedgers rely on come Monday morning?
The request is part of a broader push toward continuous markets. CME Group switched on 24/7 trading for its crypto futures at the end of May; LMAX added gold to its perpetual futures lineup with round-the-clock XAU/USD trading in February.
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The document explicitly revisits the April 2020 episode when WTI settled at negative $37.63 per barrel. A standard futures contract resolved that dislocation through expiration — the chaos was contained to one contract.
A perpetual has no expiration. The RFC asks directly: what does a no-expiry contract do when the price goes negative?
Not everyone is on board. CME Group is suing the CFTC over its perpetual approval, arguing the contracts meet the Dodd-Frank definition of a swap and should face the heavier rules that come with that label.
What This Means for Brokers
The RFC also surfaces a practical issue relevant to any 24/7 derivatives product: settlement infrastructure.
The CFTC asks whether tokenised assets or stablecoins would need to serve as collateral during weekend trading, when traditional payment rails are unavailable. That question has direct implications for any broker building margin infrastructure around round-the-clock products.
CFTC Chairman Mike Selig framed the regulator's position as supporting "responsible innovation, while preserving the protections against manipulation and market disruption that participants and the public rely on."
The @CFTC is committed to supporting responsible innovation, while preserving the protections against manipulation and market disruption that participants and the public rely on.
— Mike Selig (@ChairmanSelig) June 22, 2026
Today’s request for comment on two related developments in the energy derivatives markets reflects… https://t.co/KCxofVhWAC
The 67 questions in this RFC are a measure of how much work that balance requires when the underlying asset is a physical commodity rather than a digital one.
Energy perps are open for public comment, with the window closing approximately 30 days after Federal Register publication. The CFTC has not indicated a timeline for any resulting rulemaking.
