Bits + Bips: Are Perpetuals Swaps or Futures? The CME Picks a Fight

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 We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET - subscribe to catch it live. Sponsor Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). Chapters ⚖️ 00:00 The incumbent sues its own regulator: what the CME is actually claiming 📜 01:22 Chris on Terry Duffy, and the testimony fight that set this up 🏛️ 02:12 The Dodd-Frank origin story, traced back to the 2009 G20 ⏱️ 03:12 Why a 'swap' costs five days of margin and a future costs two 🌊 04:42 Constrain leverage onshore and watch it flee offshore ⚠️ 05:15 Austin: why the CME should be careful what it wishes for 🧨 06:26 The Dodd-Frank footnote where Congress admits it punted 🤝 08:20 ICE, OKX, and Kraken: where the dance partners line up 🎯 09:12 What the market really needs out of all this Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices