The US CFTC Chairman clarifies the perpetual contract controversy: the absence of a fixed expiration date does not affect the nature of futures contracts, and the funding rate mechanism helps price anchoring.

Odaily Planet Daily reports that Mike Selig, Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), responded to several misunderstandings about perpetual futures contracts in a post on the X platform, addressing the recent controversy surrounding the CFTC's approval of such contracts. Selig stated that neither the Commodity Exchange Act nor relevant CFTC rules explicitly require a fixed expiration date or delivery date for a "futures contract." Because Congress has not clearly defined this term, the determination of a futures contract is primarily based on judicial precedent and CFTC interpretations, and a fixed expiration date is not a necessary condition. Regarding the claim that "CFTC-approved BTCPERP contracts allow U.S. users to use 250x leverage," high leverage is not a characteristic of the perpetual contract structure itself, but rather a feature of previous offshore trading platforms. CFTC-regulated perpetual contracts will adhere to the same leverage limits as other regulated futures products. Regarding concerns that the CFTC failed to provide the industry with opportunities for participation and feedback, the CFTC publicly solicited comments on "perpetual contracts" and "24/7 trading" in April 2025, receiving over 100 responses from industry participants, including several CFTC-registered institutions. Furthermore, addressing the view that funding rate mechanisms would incur high costs and induce undesirable market behavior, considering the costs of opening and rolling over traditional term futures contracts, the annualized holding cost of perpetual contract funding rates is essentially equivalent to that of traditional futures. In fact, the funding rate mechanism helps maintain the contract price's anchor to the spot market and plays a role in market discipline.