CFTC Moves to Dismiss CME’s Lawsuit Over Crypto Perpetual Futures

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has asked a federal court to toss CME Group’s lawsuit over the agency’s approval of cryptocurrency perpetual futures. The case, it says, is “much ado about nothing.”

The CFTC filed its motion Wednesday in the District Court of Columbia. The argument is straightforward: CME, as a designated contract market, is free to list the very perpetual futures contracts it is suing to block. That, the commission says, kills any claim of competitive injury.

CME filed suit on June 18. Its target was the CFTC’s May 29 order approving Kalshi’s bitcoin perpetual futures contract, along with a broader commission statement clearing other designated contract markets to list similar instruments as futures. The exchange contends the products are swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act and Dodd-Frank. It accuses the agency of skirting its own rules to push them through.

The dismissal motion flips the frame. This, the CFTC argues, is a dispute CME built itself. The exchange has said publicly that its customers are not asking for perpetual futures. Monthly volume figures in the brief show CME’s bitcoin and ether-related futures ran higher in June and August than in May, the month the approval landed.

“Even if CME’s vague assertions of competitive injury had any substance, those injuries are entirely self-inflicted and based on CME’s refusal to list perpetual futures for trading,” the CFTC wrote.

The point is hard to miss. CME is not barred from offering these products. It has chosen not to list them. And the injury it claims grows out of that choice, not the regulator’s.

CME framed the stakes differently in its complaint. “By authorizing Kalshi and others to enter the derivatives marketplace by listing similar cryptocurrency perpetuals as futures, the CFTC ushered new entrants into CME’s retail futures market that seek to compete with CME for retail customers,” the exchange wrote.

The CFTC also pushed back on the reclassification argument. Reclassify perpetual futures as swaps if you like, the motion suggests. Kalshi and other DCMs would simply offer the contracts under that label instead. CME, on this reading, recovers nothing. The commission further argued that the regulatory and tax differences between swaps and futures are not wide enough to make the exchange’s allegations plausible.

The motion reaches for the architecture of the Commodity Exchange Act itself. Congress, the CFTC wrote, built the statute around self-regulation, market integrity, and “responsible innovation and fair competition among boards of trade.” A lawsuit aimed at stifling innovation and competition, it added, “turns that purpose on its head.”

That line is the sharpest in the filing. The agency is not so much defending the substance of its May order as arguing that CME is the wrong party to challenge it. The competitive grievance, on this view, is a problem of CME’s own commercial choices, not regulatory overreach.

The CFTC has asked for an oral hearing. CME’s opposition is due Oct. 2.

The Block said it reached out to CME for comment. No response was reported.