CFTC Challenges CME’s Standing in Court Fight Over US Crypto Perpetual Futures

CME Group says the CFTC’s approval of Kalshi’s bitcoin perpetual contract threatens to open a competing US market that the agency had no authority to permit. The CFTC says CME has not shown that it has been, or is about to be, harmed. It points to CME’s disclosures that crypto-futures volume rose more than sevenfold over three years and that management had not heard customer demand for perpetuals. Those statements complicate CME’s claim of an urgent competitive threat, though they do not resolve whether the CFTC correctly interpreted the Commodity Exchange Act.