Ondo Finance Urges SEC and CFTC to Bring Stock Perpetual Futures Onshore Under Existing Rules

Ondo Finance has submitted formal comment letters to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), urging regulators to permit stock-linked perpetual futures within the United States.
Key elements of the regulatory push include:
- Existing Framework Sufficiency: Ondo argues that current U.S. security futures rules can already support perpetual contracts without requiring new legislation or specialized frameworks, pointing out that statutory definitions do not explicitly mandate a fixed expiration date.
- Mechanism Alignment: The proposal contends that periodic funding payments effectively replace traditional expiration dates to keep contract prices tethered to underlying equities, while modern on-chain recordkeeping and real-time margining satisfy institutional risk requirements.
- Offshore Precedent: Citing its Panama-based affiliate's stablecoin-settled perpetual product—which logged $8 billion in cumulative trading volume on U.S.-listed stocks—Ondo emphasized the urgency of repatriating high-demand digital asset activity back to regulated domestic venues.