Summer Mersinger, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has said that the trading of crypto perpetual futures could soon come to the United States.
Summer Mersinger, who leaves the Commodity Futures Trading Commission at the end of the month, shared the remarks during an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday, May 22. The outgoing CFTC commissioner was responding to a question about perpetual crypto futures and whether they could gain regulatory approval in the U.S. any time soon.
“Yeah, absolutely. I think those can come to market now, and we’re seeing some applications. I believe we’ll have some of those products trading live very soon,” she noted. “It would be great to get that trading back onshore in the United States. I think it’s unfortunate that it has been driven offshore for so long.”
She added that bringing these products to the U.S. under the country’s regulatory framework would be a “really good thing for the industry.” Mersinger also believes that the approval and launch of crypto perpetual futures for the U.S. market will benefit the broader economy.
Crypto perpetual futures is a type of derivatives contract that allows traders to speculate on the price of a given cryptocurrency without an expiry date. While the crypto futures trading market has grown tremendously, accounting for about $3.7 trillion in volume in April, its trading is not yet approved in the U.S.
Mersinger expressed confidence that the CFTC will continue to operate as the independent agency it is meant to be, regardless of the political administration in Washington. She emphasized that the key for the commodities watchdog is to provide the oversight needed for derivatives markets to deliver on their legal mandates of price discovery and hedging.
She also commented on the stablecoin bill in the Senate, noting that the latest developments around the bill show that “crypto is here to stay.”
As noted, Mersinger will step down as a CFTC Commissioner on May 30, having recently agreed to join crypto advocacy group the Blockchain Association as its new chief executive officer.
