Invest2 distinct publishers3 min readPublished
Five former SEC and CFTC officials told the agencies that miscalibrated rules keep pushing perpetual futures offshore, and they filed the argument while Congress is on recess and the definitions are still being drafted.
The Investor · Invest desk
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Start with the growth rate, because that is the number the letter is really built on. Kalshi's estimate takes offshore perpetuals volume from about $28 trillion two years ago to more than $90 trillion in 2025 [9], which is 3.2 times in two years [1], or roughly 79 percent a year compounding [2], and in absolute terms it is $62 trillion of annual notional added [3] in venues that no US examiner walks into.
Set that against the $2.5 trillion figure Decrypt attaches to the industry [1] and you get about 36 turns of notional per dollar of underlying [4], which is not a valuation ratio and should not be read as one; or rather, the more useful reading is that it measures how much levered churn a $2.5 trillion asset base can generate once leverage is available offshore and nowhere else.
A comment letter into the June request for input on swap definitions and jurisdictional lines [2] is the cheapest instrument in the whole lobbying kit, and what Kalshi bought when it retained Bellementis PLLC to help draft one [10] was not drafting hours. It was a bipartisan signature block: Giancarlo, Quintenz, Brown-Hruska, Wallman, Spatt [3], filed at a moment when neither commission itself has bipartisan representation [5]. The signatories say they were not compensated and that Kalshi had no say over the contents [10], which I take at face value and also consider beside the point, since the position they advance (similar risks, similar treatment, no stacked compliance cost from overlapping rules [4]) describes precisely the regime in which the perps product Kalshi launched earlier this year [8] becomes unremarkable. Kalshi, notably, is not waiting for a statute to grant that.
This is probably wrong, but the causal claim underneath deserves testing before anyone sizes the prize: that US regulation drove this market overseas [6]. Offshore venues also compete on leverage no registered venue will offer and on listings no registered venue will touch, so a rulebook calibrated to actual risk rather than maximum burden, in Giancarlo's phrasing [11], can be entirely sensible and still repatriate a single-digit share. President Trump's remark that CFTC Chairman Michael Selig is working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States [7] is the experiment worth watching: if it registers and its volume travels with it, the calibration thesis holds; if it registers and the volume stays on the offshore book, the binding constraint was never the rulebook.
The quieter half is custody, where the SEC sent its rewrite of adviser and investment company rules to OIRA last week [12], aimed at how regulated firms can hold digital assets under the qualified custodian standard [13]. The text is not public, so which firms qualify and on what terms is unknown [14]. My thesis fails if the first onshore perps venues, two years from now, are clearing low single-digit percentages of $90 trillion [9] while offshore volume keeps compounding near 79 percent [2].
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
While crypto market structure legislation sits in summer recess limbo, the SEC and CFTC are getting a head start on writing the rules for what Decrypt describes as the $2.5 trillion crypto industry.
A new comment letter was filed by former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo, former CFTC Commissioners Brian Quintenz and Sharon Brown-Hruska, former SEC Commissioner Steven Wallman, and former SEC Chief Economist Chester Spatt.
The letter argues that similar risks should face similar regulatory treatment and that overlapping rules should not pile on additional compliance costs.
The CFTC is looking to bring perpetual futures onshore, a market some of the letter's signatories have individually argued US regulation has largely driven overseas.
Prediction market platform Kalshi began offering crypto perps earlier this year.
Kalshi estimates offshore perpetuals trading topped $90 trillion in 2025, up from around $28 trillion two years earlier.
Distinct publishers with included, body-backed reporting in this cluster.
cryptobriefing.com
1 article · August 31, 2026
decrypt.co
1 article · August 31, 2026
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Evidence-backed comparisons of source perspectives and observed adoption signals. Read the methodology
Which Builder, Operator, and Investor concerns the observed source mix emphasized—not a truth score.
Evidence, demonstrated adoption, hype gap, incentives, and confidence are assessed independently, each on its own current evidence. How these are measured.
Procedurally solid, substantively unverified
The checkable parts hold up: a June request for comment, a custody rewrite logged at the White House review office, Reg Crypto open until October 20. Everything persuasive rests on softer ground. The letter itself is not published or linked by either outlet, the $90 trillion offshore figure is the sponsor's own estimate repeated without independent sourcing, and Crypto Briefing's account is not a second reporting stream so much as a rewrite that adds market color and loses the sponsorship disclosure.
One live product, no rulebook
Regulated perps exist in the US — the CFTC has approved contracts on venues including Kalshi, and Kalshi's product cleared over $1 billion shortly after launch. Set against a claimed $90 trillion offshore pool, that is a beachhead, not a migration. The custody path is earlier still: a rewrite sitting in White House review with no text, which means no firm has yet been told it can act as a crypto qualified custodian.
Trillions quoted, billions traded
Nothing here is fabricated; the framing is simply scaled to the ambition rather than the evidence. A $90 trillion pool 'waiting for a sensible U.S. rulebook' assumes the liquidity is portable, when the same reporting says offshore venues compete on higher leverage and more pairs — advantages a US rulebook would not hand over. Crypto Briefing widens the gap by presenting a funded filing as an ex-regulator consensus and leaving out who paid for the drafting.
The sponsor supplies the number and sells the product
Kalshi retained the law firm that helped draft the letter, Kalshi produced the $90 trillion estimate that gives the letter its urgency, and Kalshi already lists the instrument a lighter calibration would favor. The signatories say they were unpaid and had editorial control, and Decrypt prints that caveat — but the alignment between the advocacy, the statistic and the business is close enough that a reader should treat the number as a market-sizing pitch as much as a measurement.
Confident on the filings, cautious on the case
We are comfortable saying a bipartisan group of former officials filed this argument, that Kalshi paid for the drafting, and that a custody rewrite is under White House review — those are specific and attributed. We are much less comfortable with the market arithmetic, since the growth multiple and the addressable-pool comparison are only as good as one interested estimate, and with the two accounts' differing rosters of who is actually behind the push.