CME Group CEO to Sue CFTC Over Approval of Perpetual Futures

Outgoing CME Group CEO Terrence Duffy said on CNBC's "Fast Money" on Wednesday afternoon that the exchange operator will sue the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the agency's move to approve perpetual futures.

The CFTC approved prediction market platform Kalshi in late May to begin offering bitcoin perpetual futures, or "perps." These are futures contracts that have no expiration date but allow traders to speculate on a price without owning the underlying asset. This approval marked the first time that the asset class, already popular overseas, was allowed in the U.S. Kalshi has since expanded its perps offerings to include other cryptocurrencies.

Duffy asserted that perpetual futures are actually swaps under the Dodd-Frank Act. He said this will be the basis of the CME's lawsuit, which will be filed on Thursday.

"We have an exclusive license with every single provider of the benchmarks. So all of these would have to go through CME regardless of the perpetual," Duffy said on "Fast Money."

"They would have to list them as swaps, if that's the way that it came out," he added.

Duffy, who will be stepping down as CEO in March 2027, added that he'd been working on this plan with his board for the past eight months, and that he was "always up for a good battle."

"I've never shied away from one, and I won't shy away from this," he said. "I'm prepared, and I will be prepared to go through this. And that's why I wanted to announce on your show that we will be filing this litigation tomorrow, because we are not taking this lightly."

The CFTC did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment.

Earlier this week, CFTC chair Michael Selig defended his agency's decision to approve perpetual futures domestically in an appearance on CNBC's "Fast Money."

"It's time to approve regulated futures contracts that have no expiration date," he said. "We're going to make sure the product's available, but it's well regulated here in the U.S."

Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.