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Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will host an industry roundtable on December 15 to discuss whether - and where - US derivatives markets should move to 24/7 trading. The event, announced yesterday, builds on the request for comment the agency issued this summer and comes after months in which round-the-clock trading has turned from a crypto niche into one of the most contested market structure questions in Washington.
According to the CFTC, the roundtable will cover overnight trading, tokenization, infrastructure and staffing needs, and operational readiness, with participants from across the industry discussing how the Commission can promote responsible innovation while protecting market participants and preserving the integrity and resilience of US derivatives markets.
"I have been consistently clear: under my leadership, the CFTC will not take a one-size-fits-all approach to 24/7 trading. Market structure evolves best through thoughtful and responsible progress, and that's exactly why we're hosting a roundtable to hear directly from industry on their views for 24/7 trading across different asset classes," said CFTC Chairman Michael Selig.
The roundtable will take place at the CFTC's headquarters in Washington, will be open to the public and livestreamed on CFTC.gov. Agenda, speakers and registration details will be published later, and the public can submit speaker nominations to Roundtables@CFTC.gov..
Crypto went first
The first major US venue to make the jump was CME Group, which switched its entire cryptocurrency futures and options suite to 24/7 trading on May 29, 2026, with only a two-hour Saturday maintenance window. Around 7,200 contracts worth roughly USD50m in notional value traded over the first weekend. The move removed the so-called "CME gap" - the weekend price jumps that occurred when spot crypto kept trading while regulated futures were closed - and brought CME in line with the always-on nature of the underlying market.
The same month, the CFTC approved Kalshi's bitcoin perpetual futures contract, the first perpetual contract listed on a US designated contract market, together with a policy statement on the listing of perpetuals. CME, which opposes perpetual futures, subsequently went to court to challenge that approval.
The oil test case
Energy has proven far more contentious. On June 22, the CFTC issued a request for comment on two related issues: extending standard futures contracts to 24/7 trading without changing their expiration, delivery or settlement terms, and listing perpetual contracts on physically delivered or storable energy commodities such as crude oil. The questions covered the reliability and manipulation-resistance of reference prices, surveillance, position limits, margin and clearing, customer protection and the effect on physical markets.
Two weeks later, on July 8, CME's NYMEX self-certified a 10-barrel WTI crude oil futures contract designed to trade around the clock, including weekends and holidays when the physical crude market is not assessed. The CFTC stayed the listing the following day, with Selig calling CME's decision to self-certify while the consultation was still open "wholly inappropriate". According to Argus, oil industry executives and commodity trading firms had held at least nine meetings with Selig in the preceding two weeks to raise concerns about 24/7 energy trading.
When the CFTC extended the comment period to August 26, it added a pointed question: could weekend trading in a smaller, correlated oil contract give holders of benchmark positions an incentive to move prices while the main market is closed and influence where it reopens - in the extreme, even pushing crude oil prices negative, as happened in April 2020. It also asked the industry to spell out what systems, staffing and processes would be needed to support 24/7 crude trading, and how long that would take. The comment file closed with around 50 submissions.
CME has since withdrawn the 24/7 oil contract after pushback from the oil sector and the regulator. The debate is not over, however: on October 20, Kalshi asked the CFTC to approve a WTI perpetual contract tracking the front-month NYMEX price, which would be the first energy perpetual in the US.
Not one size fits all
Selig has repeatedly made the point he restates in yesterday's announcement. At a House Agriculture Committee hearing in April, he told lawmakers worried about round-the-clock margin pressure on farmers that 24/7 trading "isn't for everybody" and that agricultural contracts may require a different framework. CFTC staff have similarly advised exchanges and clearing houses that continuous trading and clearing may not currently be suitable for all asset classes. In September, Selig identified crypto and precious metals as markets that may currently be suitable for 24/7 trading, while agricultural products, energy and certain financial contracts may not.
That leaves the December roundtable with a practical agenda: which markets can support continuous trading without compromising price formation and surveillance, and whether the clearing, collateral and staffing infrastructure behind them is ready. Tokenization is on the list too, reflecting the expectation that on-chain collateral and settlement will be needed to make weekend trading work at scale. Selig himself has said that tokenization, on-chain finance and 24/7 trading will likely bring more change to financial markets over the next decade than the previous several decades combined.
For hedge funds and CTAs, the stakes are concrete. Weekend and overnight sessions would allow managers to react to geopolitical and macro events as they happen rather than at the Sunday evening open - but they would also mean thinner liquidity at odd hours, margin calls that can arrive at any time, and the need for risk, operations and treasury teams to cover a market that never closes. The equity side is moving in the same direction, with NYSE, Nasdaq and Cboe all pursuing near-24-hour weekday trading under the SEC, making the question less whether markets will extend their hours than how far and how fast.
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