Blockchain.com Seeks FCM and DCM Licenses for Direct U.S. Derivatives Access

Blockchain.com wants in. Really in. The company has filed applications for both a futures commission merchant registration and a designated contract market license in the United States, a move that would let it run its own exchange rather than piggybacking on other platforms.

Per National Futures Association records, Blockchain.com Derivatives Inc. submitted its FCM registration application and NFA membership request on August 25. Both are still under review. The company isn’t authorized yet to conduct any FCM-related activities, and the clock on that approval is basically anyone’s guess. The DCM application, meanwhile, hasn’t turned up in public CFTC records at all — no filings, no product details, no market-access model spelled out for anyone to read. Unclear when that changes.

How Blockchain.com Currently Operates

Right now, Blockchain.com doesn’t run the markets it offers. It distributes them. The company plugs Polymarket event contracts into its brokerage app for users outside the U.S., and it offers Hyperliquid-powered perpetual futures through its self-custody wallet. Both are external providers. Blockchain.com essentially sits in front of those platforms, handling the customer relationship while the underlying infrastructure belongs to someone else.

It’s a pretty common setup in the industry. You don’t need to own the rails to sell tickets. And for a company still building its U.S. regulatory footprint, leaning on Polymarket and Hyperliquid kept things moving without requiring a full exchange buildout.

But that model has limits.

If the FCM and DCM registrations go through, Blockchain.com could list its own event contracts and crypto derivatives products directly. It could onboard eligible U.S. customers without routing them through a third party’s infrastructure. That’s a fundamentally different business — less intermediary, more operator.

Robinhood’s Playbook Looms Large

There’s a precedent worth watching here. Robinhood started out distributing event contracts from an external exchange, then went further. The company formed a joint venture with Susquehanna and used that to acquire MIAXdx, picking up its own exchange and clearinghouse in the process. That entity is now called Rothera. Robinhood went from reseller to market operator, and it did it through acquisition rather than building from scratch.

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Blockchain.com hasn’t said it’s doing anything like that. No acquisition plans disclosed, no clearing infrastructure strategy made public, no partner named for that side of the business. The company hasn’t said whether it’ll build its own clearinghouse, buy one, or work with an existing provider. So that piece is murky.

What the applications do say — implicitly — is that Blockchain.com wants more control. Over its products. Over its customer relationships. Over the full stack of what it means to operate in U.S. derivatives markets. The FCM piece would let it take on customers directly and handle their funds. The DCM piece would let it list contracts on its own venue. Together, they’d shift the company from the edge of the market toward the center of it.

Regulatory Timeline Still Open

The gap between filing and approval is not small. FCM registration through the NFA involves a detailed review of financials, compliance systems, and operational infrastructure. DCM applications at the CFTC are even heavier — they require documentation of the exchange’s rulebook, product specifications, and how the market will function. The fact that Blockchain.com’s DCM application hasn’t surfaced in public CFTC records yet probably means it’s early days, or the filing hasn’t been formally received and docketed yet. No way to know for certain.

Until something gets approved, Blockchain.com keeps running the same playbook. Polymarket contracts in the brokerage app. Hyperliquid perpetuals in the wallet. External providers doing the heavy lifting on the infrastructure side while Blockchain.com handles the front end.

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That’s not nothing. The company has built a meaningful distribution layer. But distribution is a different business than operation, and the gap between those two things — in terms of revenue potential, regulatory standing, and competitive positioning — is real. Firms that control their own exchange infrastructure set their own fees, list their own products, and don’t share economics with upstream providers.

Blockchain.com’s applications are a bet that the regulatory path is worth it. Whether the CFTC and NFA move fast or slow, whether the DCM application materializes in public records soon or sits in review for another year — none of that is settled. The August 25 NFA filing date is the only hard timestamp on the public record right now.