Perpetual futures, derivative contracts that track individual stock prices but carry no fixed expiration date, can already fit within US securities law as written. That is the argument Ondo is making directly to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The company wants both agencies to sanction this class of derivative under domestic supervision rather than leaving traders to reach for it through foreign venues.
The short version: no new statute needed. Ondo's position is that existing rules can accommodate perpetuals tied to individual equities. A standard futures contract has a set expiration date; a perpetual drops that feature. That difference has made perpetuals popular on offshore trading platforms but legally unsettled in the United States, where neither the SEC nor the CFTC has formally sanctioned them.
Bringing a product "onshore" means placing it inside domestic regulatory jurisdiction. In plain terms, when a derivative is traded onshore, federal agencies can apply investor protection rules, reporting requirements, and margin safeguards. When it sits offshore, those protections do not generally follow the US investor who accesses it.
Both the SEC and the CFTC have been examining how to extend federal oversight over more derivatives activity. Ondo is making its case in that climate, arguing the statutory door is already open.
What Ondo submitted is an argument, not a ruling. Neither agency has responded publicly, and no approval is in place. The company's reading of existing law still needs to survive agency scrutiny, and neither the SEC nor the CFTC has signaled a timeline. Stock perpetuals tied to US equities remain an offshore product for American-based traders until the agencies weigh in.