Ondo Urges US Regula...

Ondo Urges US Regulators to Clear Path for Onchain Stock Perpetuals

By José Oramas September 03, 2026 In Onchain, Ondo

Ondo Finance filed three comment letters urging the SEC and CFTC to allow perpetual futures on individual US-listed stocks in the United States under existing rules, making the case public on Sept. 2.
Ondo argues a perpetual contract on a stock already qualifies as a “security futures product”, since “nothing in the statutory definition of a security futures product requires a fixed expiration date”, so no new rules are needed.
Its Panama affiliate, Ondo Global Panama Inc., already runs the product offshore through Ondo Perps, which logged US$8 billion (AU$11.2 billion) in cumulative volume by Aug. 14, weeks after a July 7 launch.

Ondo Finance has asked US regulators to let perpetual futures tied to individual US-listed stocks trade domestically, arguing the products fit existing law and need no new rules.

In three comment letters to the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, signed Aug. 24 and laid out publicly on Sept. 2, the tokenisation firm said a cash-settled perpetual contract on a stock already meets the definition of a “security futures product”, a category Congress created in 2000.

“Nothing in the statutory definition of a security futures product requires a fixed expiration date”, Ondo wrote.

The letters cover product definitions, portfolio margining and data reporting, and respond to a joint SEC-CFTC request for comment on how to define swaps and security-based swaps. Ondo said regulators should let firms take product-specific perpetual filings to staff instead of writing new rules.

A perpetual has no set expiry but settles continuously through periodic funding payments, which Ondo likened to the final settlement of a dated futures contract.

A Product Already Live Offshore

Ondo already runs the product outside the US, exclusively for traders based abroad. Its Panama-based affiliate, Ondo Global Panama Inc., operates Ondo Perps, a stablecoin-settled platform that lets non-US traders take perpetual positions on stocks such as Apple, Nvidia and Tesla with up to 20 times leverage, alongside commodities including gold and crude oil, around the clock.

Ondo Perps lets traders post tokenised stocks and other assets as margin instead of cash or stablecoins, keeping their holdings in play while they trade. Ondo pitches the platform as capital-efficient, letting one pool of collateral back several positions at once.

The firm acquired broker-dealer Oasis Pro, which holds SEC registrations as a broker-dealer, alternative trading system and transfer agent, and has built its own blockchain for tokenised assets.

It also built its business on tokenised US Treasuries and now ranks among the largest managers of tokenised real-world assets.