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Kalshi's $5.5B Two-Week Volume Pushes Perps Beyond Crypto
Kalshi's regulated perpetual futures reached $5.5 billion in two weeks. Now the CFTC-approved platform eyes expansion into other assets while fighting state prediction market bans.
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Kalshi's perpetual futures cleared $5.5 billion in trading volume within two weeks of going live, the company said. The first regulated U.S. perpetual contracts hit the platform on June 3, after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved the BTCPERP product on May 29. Volume accelerated from $1 billion in the first week, Bloomberg data show.
Kalshi listed 11 perpetuals tied to crypto tokens and charged no trading fees during the launch window to seed liquidity. Bets on the FIFA World Cup and the NBA Finals drove much of the early activity, the company said. Perpetual futures never expire. They use a periodic funding rate to track the underlying asset's price. The structure has become the most heavily traded product in crypto. Until Kalshi's launch, U.S. traders accessed it through unregistered offshore platforms.
The CFTC framed the approval as a step toward bringing crypto derivatives onshore, Kalshi said. The agency's green light gave the platform a regulatory edge over offshore rivals. Kalshi's existing event-contract traders now have a compliant path to leveraged positions on bitcoin.