Three U.S. derivatives venues placed an unusually specific question into the rulebook on September 18: how should cash-settled futures tied to individual stocks or exchange-traded funds work when the contract does not expire on a conventional quarterly calendar?

The filings from Coinbase Derivatives, Bitnomial Exchange and KalshiEX are not approvals and they are not evidence of a live launch. They are proposed rule frameworks. That distinction is the signal.

What the filings actually propose

Coinbase Derivatives proposed a new chapter for cash-settled futures on individual equities and ETF shares, including perpetual single-stock futures. KalshiEX proposed perpetual security futures linked to equity prices, with funding payments and clearing through Kalshi Klear. Bitnomial proposed generic listing standards for cash-settled single-equity security futures, including perpetual contracts.

Across the documents, the practical controls matter more than the label: eligibility of intermediaries, position and margin rules, treatment of corporate actions, trading halts, reference prices, funding payments, clearing and market-data publication.

Why “perpetual” changes the evidence problem

A contract without a fixed expiry needs a mechanism to keep its price connected to the underlying reference. Funding payments may help, but that creates a second layer of observable state. Analysts must watch the underlying equity, the derivative price, the funding process, venue rules and clearing status together.

That is also why a perpetual contract should not be interpreted as ownership of the underlying security. These proposals describe cash settlement, not delivery of shares or voting rights.

ATLAS4 read: the rulebook is the first timestamp

For evidence-led monitoring, at least four moments must remain separate: filing, regulatory approval, product certification or listing, and the first credible executable market. Treating those moments as interchangeable manufactures certainty that the public record does not support.

The filings are meaningful because three independent venues are converging on related market structure. But convergence is corroboration of industry direction, not a vote that overrides venue-specific facts. Each filing carries its own approval state, clearing path and operational dependencies.

What would confirm the thesis

The next evidence should come from the SEC and CFTC records, final venue notices, contract specifications, clearing disclosures and live market-quality data. Until those layers align, the conservative conclusion is narrow: U.S. single-stock perpetuals have entered formal rule design; they have not yet earned the status of established market infrastructure.