Ondo urges the U.S. SEC and CFTC to regulate U.S. stock perpetual contract business

Ondo Finance is urging U.S. regulators to bring the business of perpetual contracts anchored to individual stocks under regulation, asserting that this product can operate in compliance under the existing securities and futures framework without new rules. In three comment letters sent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on August 24, Ondo stated that existing rules can accommodate stock perpetual futures while considering modern margin practices and on-chain listing data. Ondo mentioned that its affiliated company in Panama has been offering stablecoin-settled perpetual contracts anchored to U.S. stocks overseas, with a cumulative trading volume reaching $8 billion as of August 14 since its launch in June.

Ondo believes that regular funding rate payments can keep perpetual contracts aligned with the underlying stock prices, functioning similarly to the expiration settlement of traditional futures. In the letter, Ondo stated that there are no provisions in the statutory definition of securities futures products that require a fixed expiration date to be set. The company also pointed out that many offshore perpetual contracts have underlying stocks primarily traded on U.S. exchanges, and bringing the related business back to the U.S. should be a direction actively promoted by both agencies. According to RWA.xyz data, Ondo is one of the largest managers in the tokenized real-world assets (RWA) space, with an allocated value of approximately $2.6 billion as of Wednesday, ranking fourth.

Ondo's proposal comes as U.S. regulators are re-examining the existing market rules for on-chain products, including perpetual contracts and tokenized securities. In March of this year, the SEC and CFTC signed a memorandum of understanding to coordinate regulation in overlapping areas of jurisdiction.