Ondo Finance Proposes Functional Regulatory Standards To SEC And CFTC

@Ondo has submitted three formal comment letters to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), calling for a modernized regulatory framework that addresses perpetual futures, portfolio margining, and market data reporting for on-chain markets.

Outcomes Over Familiarity

Central to Ondo's argument is the view that the existing legal regime can already accommodate on-chain markets, provided regulators shift their focus toward functional outcomes rather than defaulting to a "familiarity" approach that maps new technology onto legacy structures. The firm argues that forcing on-chain products into frameworks designed for traditional venues can create unnecessary friction without delivering meaningful investor protection.

On the market data front, Ondo points to on-chain verification as a structural alternative to after-the-fact reporting requirements. Because transactions are recorded on a public ledger in real time, the firm contends that mandatory post-trade reporting, as it exists for conventional venues, becomes largely redundant.

Perps Platform Already Live

The comment letters arrive with a live product as supporting evidence. Ondo Perps launched in July 2026 and lets non-U.S. traders use tokenized assets, rather than stablecoins, as margin. Ian De Bode, President at Ondo Finance, described it as "the first time a permissionless equity perps platform has been built with the infrastructure required to unlock liquidity, speed, and capital efficiency comparable to traditional derivatives markets." The platform offers up to 20x leverage on stocks, indices, and commodities, including tokenized versions of major names such as NVDA, TSLA, and AAPL.

The platform accepts tokenized real-world assets as collateral alongside stablecoins, meaning traders who already hold tokenized equities can post them directly as margin rather than sourcing a separate pool of stablecoins. Spot holdings and perp positions are managed on the same platform, allowing traders to hedge without moving capital across multiple venues.

By citing the ethereum:0xfaba6f8e4a5e8ab82f62fe7c39859fa577269be3 Perps in its regulatory submissions, Ondo is making a practical case: on-chain infrastructure can meet regulatory objectives through transparency and programmable settlement, rather than through compliance mechanisms borrowed from traditional finance.

The submissions land at a pivotal moment for crypto derivatives policy. The CFTC established the first affirmative U.S. regulatory framework for crypto asset perpetual futures contracts through three coordinated actions taken on May 29, 2026. Historically, perpetual contracts have been offered primarily on offshore venues, in part due to regulatory uncertainty in the United States, and the CFTC's recent actions reflect an effort to bring these products onshore while clarifying their regulatory classification.

Ondo's letters represent one of the more detailed industry-led efforts to shape how that framework develops, using a functioning on-chain platform to argue that regulators need not choose between innovation and oversight.

Sources:
Ondo Finance: Introducing Ondo Perps
PR Newswire: Ondo Perps Launches First Equity Perpetuals Platform
Akin Gump: CFTC Advances Framework for Perpetual Contracts and 24/7 Markets