The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by CME Group contesting the regulator’s approval of cryptocurrency perpetual futures contracts. The agency argues that CME has failed to demonstrate concrete financial harm, characterizing the dispute as «much ado about nothing» and noting that the regulatory order permits any designated contract market, including CME, to list such products.

According to the CFTC, CME’s lawsuit lacks merit because the order in question allows any registered designated contract market to list similarly structured products. The regulator further contends that reclassifying these perpetual futures contracts would not address any alleged competitive injury to CME, and that the exchange’s attempt to shield itself from competition falls outside the scope of protections intended by the Commodity Exchange Act.

CME maintains that perpetual futures contracts—those without expiration dates or delivery obligations that exchange funding payments between traders—meet the legal definition of swaps rather than futures. The exchange also criticized the CFTC for departing from previous enforcement actions where crypto perpetuals were classified as swaps, without providing adequate explanation for this change in approach.

The legal battle began in June when CME sued the regulator following the CFTC’s approval of Kalshi’s BTCPERP contract as a futures instrument. This cash-settled product tracks Bitcoin’s spot price, trades continuously, and has no expiration date, using periodic payments between long and short positions to maintain price alignment with the spot market through a funding rate mechanism.