Invest2 publishers3 min readPublished
OG.com asks the CFTC to list never-expiring stock futures at 15.05% margin
OG.com Markets asked the CFTC to approve cash-settled perpetual futures on single US stocks, trading 24 hours a day on weekdays at a 15.05% minimum margin. At about 6 times leverage they would sell the trade margin accounts now offer, so brokers will pick the winning venue.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Each contract would reference one share, take the official cash-market price as its index and track it through periodic funding payments between longs and shorts.
- The submission names Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, AMD, Micron and SpaceX as underlyings.
- Coinbase, Kalshi and Payward's Bitnomial each asked the CFTC on September 18 for permission to offer perpetual futures on individual US stocks.
- OG.com is the derivatives and prediction-market venue recently spun out of Crypto.com at a valuation of about $5 billion.
- The CFTC has said it will review products tied to individual equities one by one instead of under a blanket perpetual-futures framework.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- cost The cost of holding leverage becomes whatever funding rate traders on the venue set, so whether a month long Apple costs less than a broker's margin loan or an option cannot be judged until the contracts trade.
- constraint Listing one contract per stock puts all open interest in a single line, so the first venue approved for a name has the clearest claim to its order flow.
- decision Retail brokers now choose among four near-identical filings, and Robinhood's routing deal with OG.com, as reported, covers prediction markets only, so where it sends stock-perpetual orders is still open.
Posting $1,000 against one of these contracts at the 15.05% minimum would control about $6,645 of stock, since 1,000 divided by 0.1505 is 6,645 [5][1]. The reported leverage cap of about 6 times is that 6.6 rounded down [5][1]. At full leverage, a 15.05% move against the position uses up the whole margin before any funding payment is counted [4]. Each contract is one share with a one-cent tick [3][4], so the smallest position in Nvidia or Tesla is a single share [7].
OG.com would list one contract per underlying at a time and settle in dollars [6][4]. There are no dated months to roll and no shares change hands. A position can stay open indefinitely [2], and the funding payment exchanged among longs and shorts is what holds the contract to the stock's price [3].
Trading would run 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday, which comes to 120 hours a week [2][2]. The index is the official cash-market price [3]. In any hour when that official price is not being set, the contract trades against a reference price that is not updating. The reported submission does not say how funding is calculated in those hours. The exchange says surveillance, halt coordination and dual-trading restrictions would follow existing security-futures rules [19]. Crowdfund Insider wrote that the filing would test how funding-rate mechanics, 24/5 trading and cash settlement interact with investor protection rules written for traditional security futures [18].
Four venues now want this product [3]. If the CFTC clears them at about the same time, the venues compete on funding and fees. If it clears one first, that venue's single line per stock is where orders collect. The SEC could also slow all four, since single-stock futures are security futures under joint CFTC and SEC oversight [12].
I think distribution decides it. Crowdfund Insider wrote that whether the contracts trade depends on the CFTC review, on parallel SEC considerations and on whether retail and institutional brokers choose to offer them [16]. If a rival wins approval well ahead and fills its order book before brokers commit, I am wrong. I am also wrong if Robinhood, which took an equity interest in OG.com [10], sends its customers' stock-perpetual orders to a competitor.
Chief Executive Kris Marszalek said when the spin-off was announced that the company intended to move beyond event contracts into futures and perpetual products [9]. OG.com already holds designated-contract-market and derivatives-clearing-organization status with the CFTC and is notice-registered with the SEC for security futures [13]. According to Cointelegraph, the agency approved Kalshi's Bitcoin perpetual in May [17]. In June it gave temporary relief letting some registered exchanges convert existing crypto futures into contracts without expiry dates [20]. If it signs off on the stock contracts, OG.com says listing and clearing would begin on the approval date or on a later date the exchange announces [15].
What to watch
- Which of the four filings the CFTC clears first, and whether the approved margin stays at 15.05%.
- Any SEC action on the stock contracts, given joint oversight of security futures.
- Whether Robinhood or another retail broker says it will carry single-stock perpetuals, and from which venue.