The Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) has asked the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to adopt a shared framework for classifying perpetual contracts, filing its comment on the last day of the agencies’ joint public comment window.
The advocacy group is arguing that a consistent taxonomy across both regulators would end long-running jurisdictional fights over novel derivatives and open the door to onshoring perpetuals volume that has, so far, largely traded offshore.
According to the comment letter published on August 24, HPC is responding to the SEC and CFTC’s joint request for public comment on further definition of “swap” and “security-based swap,” which asked whether existing product definitions still reflect current market structure and how novel products should be handled where SEC and CFTC interests overlap.
The filing lands as regulators, exchanges, and courts continue to wrestle with a threshold question about perpetual contracts, which the group calls the key determination “from which the product’s entire regulatory treatment follows.”
What HPC is asking for
In its blog post accompanying the letter, HPC argues that a perpetual contract carries the same features courts have long treated as hallmarks of futures, including standardized terms, fungibility, futurity, and the ability to exit through an offsetting position.
Its lack of a fixed expiry, the group says, is not a distinguishing feature because expiry only exists to pull the contract price toward the underlying asset’s price, and perpetuals achieve that convergence continuously through their funding rate.
HPC asks the two Commissions to take four steps that, in its view, would not require formal rulemaking:
- Confirm the security future definition incorporates the established hallmarks of futures contracts, and that a cash-settled equity perpetual bearing those hallmarks may be listed as a security future.
- Preserve the flexibility trading venues currently have to make product listing determinations.
- Keep classification consistent across both agencies so a perpetual receives the same threshold classification regardless of the reference asset.
- Modernize the security futures framework to revitalize the category and accommodate new product structures.
The group argues these steps can be delivered through interpretive guidance, policy statements, and staff-level action, with any codification to follow as regulators build experience with the product.
Why the classification fight matters
Federal commodities law sorts derivatives into two primary buckets, futures contracts and swaps, that can share identical economics but face different rules for how they reach the market, who may trade them, and what obligations apply to venues and intermediaries.
When a derivative references a security, the Commodity Exchange Act works alongside the federal securities laws to divide authority between the CFTC and the SEC, and in some cases places a single product under both.
HPC’s letter frames the perpetual contract as the latest in a long line of novel derivatives that have straddled that boundary, citing a decades-old federal court description of the exercise as deciding “whether tetrahedrons belong in square or round holes.” Previous straddlers, including novel options, index participations, Dow Jones index futures, and volatility index futures, ended in disputes that stalled new market development for years.
Under the Commissions’ existing rulebooks, the same economic exposure can be sold as a futures contract on a Designated Contract Market or as a swap on a Swap Execution Facility, with different registration, clearing, margin, reporting, and access requirements. The Hyperliquid Policy Center is arguing that leaving that gap unresolved for perpetuals will keep pushing volume, developers, and price discovery offshore.
Security futures, an inactive category, back on the table
A less-discussed angle in the filing is HPC’s push to revive the security futures category, a product class jointly overseen by both Commissions that has been commercially dormant for years.
Under existing law, a registrant primarily regulated by one agency can cross into the other’s remit through notice registration, meaning securities exchanges and futures exchanges can compete in the same product class if security futures treatment is restored.
The timing is not coincidental. CME Group returned to the category this summer, launching single-stock futures on July 27, marking the first meaningful US activity in the space in years. HPC is arguing that a modernized security futures framework, combined with a harmonized taxonomy, would allow SEC- and CFTC-registered exchanges to compete on execution and liquidity rather than litigate over which regulator’s registrants can list a given product.
From CFTC’s Bitcoin perp order to the joint definition review
The comment fits into a broader regulatory sequence the CFTC and SEC have been building through 2026. In May, the CFTC approved the first US-listed perpetual contract, permitting it to trade as a futures contract, and issued a policy statement noting that equity perpetuals warrant coordinated review by both agencies. Following that, the two Commissions asked publicly how swap and security-based swap definitions, and the exclusions from those definitions for futures and security futures, should apply to novel products, including whether a cash-settled equity perpetual can be a security future.
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, in a statement tied to the May order, said the question was never whether perpetual contract markets would exist, but whether they would exist under American oversight. He has previously rejected criticism of the products’ legality, funding mechanisms, and investor protections.
The classification debate is also playing out in court, where the CFTC is defending its perpetual futures approvals against a lawsuit filed by CME Group, which argues that perpetual contracts should be treated as swaps rather than futures under Dodd-Frank. HPC’s harmonization proposal, in effect, offers regulators a route that sidesteps that binary and treats the reference asset, not the presence or absence of a fixed expiry, as the driver of which Commission oversees the contract.
Onshoring the offshore volume
HPC’s letter puts a number on the addressable opportunity. Citing the ASXN-Hyperliquid dashboard, the group says more than $480 billion in perpetual contract volume has traded on Hyperliquid’s markets over the past ten months, including markets in oil, metals, currencies, equity indices, and single stocks. Prompt guidance, HPC argues, could bring meaningful portions of that activity into a US-regulated framework.
The filing is HPC’s most direct engagement yet with both Commissions on the same document. Since launching in February, the group has filed with the CFTC on perpetual futures more broadly, pushed the CFTC alongside Phantom to update rules for onchain trading infrastructure, and met with the SEC’s Crypto Task Force in July.
Interest in a domestic pathway for perpetuals also intensified last week, when Hyperliquid’s HYPE token jumped 23% after President Donald Trump said the CFTC was working on a path to bring the platform to the United States. The comment letter does not reference the president’s remarks, but it puts a specific regulatory ask on the table for both agencies to consider.
No commitment from either agency
The Commissions have not indicated how they will treat HPC’s recommendations. Public comments received in the joint review will feed into the agencies’ broader evaluation of derivatives product definitions, and any change to how perpetuals are classified would still need to move through interpretive guidance, staff action, or, if the Commissions choose, a formal rulemaking process.
HPC said it will continue engaging with both agencies and their staff as the questions move forward.
Also Read: Trump’s CLARITY Push vs. SEC Rulemaking: Has the White House Changed the Debate?
