CFTC Sets Dec. 15 Roundtable on 24/7 Derivatives Trading

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will host an industry roundtable on Dec. 15 to discuss whether U.S. derivatives markets can move to 24-hour, seven-day trading, the agency announced on Oct. 28. The session will take place at the commission's headquarters in Washington and will be open to the public and livestreamed on CFTC.gov.

The roundtable builds on a Request for Comment the agency issued over the summer on extending standard futures contracts to around-the-clock trading and on perpetual contracts, the CFTC said in its release. Agenda items listed in the announcement include overnight trading, tokenization, infrastructure and staffing needs, and operational readiness.

Chairman Michael Selig framed the event as a listening exercise rather than a prelude to any particular rule. "I have been consistently clear: under my leadership, the CFTC will not take a one-size-fits-all approach to 24/7 trading," Selig said in the release. "Market structure evolves best through thoughtful and responsible progress, and that's exactly why we're hosting a roundtable to hear directly from industry on their views for 24/7 trading across different asset classes."

Crypto Briefing, which reported the announcement the same day, noted that the session will focus mainly on traditional derivatives rather than digital-asset products, while the presence of tokenization on the agenda brings crypto-market questions into the same discussion. The outlet also wrote that the roundtable creates no new rules on its own, describing it as a fact-finding exercise.

The commission has said the dialogue is meant to weigh how the agency can support market innovation while protecting participants and preserving the integrity and resilience of U.S. derivatives markets. Details on the agenda, speakers and registration will be posted at a later date, according to the release. The number of in-person participants may be limited, and visitors will be subject to security checks. The agency also invited the public to submit speaker nominations by email to its agriculture office.

Crypto Briefing described the three main discussion areas in practical terms. Overnight trading covers the mechanics of keeping contracts trading through hours when activity has traditionally slowed or stopped. Tokenization means representing an asset, or a claim on it, as a digital token on a ledger. Infrastructure and staffing round out the list: a market that never closes needs systems that stay up and people available to monitor them at any hour. The CFTC's framing centers on operational, structural and risk-management challenges, the outlet reported, including when collateral gets called if prices move overnight or over a weekend with no trading break.

Perpetual futures contracts, which have no expiration date and let traders hold positions indefinitely rather than rolling them over each month, were part of the summer request for comment alongside the extension of standard futures contracts to 24/7 hours. Crypto trading venues have long run continuously; whether the regulated U.S. derivatives market should follow, and what that would require of clearing houses, brokers and risk systems, is the question the commission put on the public record with its Oct. 28 announcement.

The announcement came on Oct. 28, giving market participants roughly seven weeks to prepare before the Dec. 15 session, Crypto Briefing noted. The Dec. 15 session is the second formal step in the commission's 24/7 process, after the summer comment request. Whether contracts that now close overnight can keep trading through weekends and holidays, and what staffing and risk systems that would require, are among the questions now headed for a public hearing.

The commission did not name panelists or preview outcomes in the Oct. 28 release. It described the event as a public venue for dialogue, with in-person attendance possibly limited and subject to security checks. Members of the public can submit speaker nominations to the agency's agriculture office while the agenda and registration details remain unpublished.