Unchained
Unchained
Laura Shin
Are Perpetuals Swaps or Futures? The CME Picks a Fight
11 minutes Posted Jun 24, 2026 at 3:50 am.
pm ET subscribe to catch it live.
The incumbent sues its own regulator: what the CME is actually claiming
Chris on Terry Duffy, and the testimony fight that set this up
The Dodd-Frank origin story, traced back to the 2009 G20
Why a 'swap' costs five days of margin and a future costs two
Constrain leverage onshore and watch it flee offshore
Austin: why the CME should be careful what it wishes for
The Dodd-Frank footnote where Congress admits it punted
ICE, OKX, and Kraken: where the dance partners line up
What the market really needs out of all this
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Show notes
Three years ago, Chris Perkins sat across from Terry Duffy in Congress and made the case for perpetuals. Duffy pushed back — hard. Now Duffy's CME is suing the very regulator that finally allowed them.
The CME argues Bitcoin perpetual futures are really swaps and should carry far more collateral. Chris traces the Dodd-Frank history that created the swap-versus-future divide, and Austin Campbell lays out why picking this fight in a post-Chevron court could backfire on the incumbent. Is a perpetual a swap or a future, and who gets to decide?
Hosts:
Austin Campbell - Host of Bits + Bips, Founder of Zero Knowledge Group, and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern
Ram Ahluwalia - Co-host of Bits + Bips and CEO of Lumida
Chris Perkins - Co-host of Bits + Bips and Head of Franklin Crypto
This clip is from a longer conversation on tokenization, the AI trade, and the CME's lawsuit against the CFTC. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/oSiOeWq_pKE 
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