Kalshi perpetual futures trading ‘perps’ crosses $1 billion in volume within a week of launch
Kalshi, a prediction market platform, has made waves in the trading world with its new perpetual futures, which have already surpassed $1 billion in trading volume within just one week of their launch. The company officially rolled out trading on crypto perpetual futures, also known as “perps,” last Wednesday, and within the first 24 hours, saw over $100 million in volume. These volumes include leverage traders’ contracts, making it a significant achievement for Kalshi.
Perpetual futures are futures contracts that do not have an expiration date, allowing traders to speculate on prices without actually owning the underlying asset. These contracts track the price of an asset continuously, with funding payments ensuring that the perpetual contract price remains aligned with the market. Despite the asset class having an annual global volume of over $90 trillion, there was previously no way to trade these contracts in the U.S. until Kalshi’s launch.
Kalshi received regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on May 29, becoming the first company in the U.S. to offer perp contracts. On the same day, Coinbase also received approval to provide its U.S. traders access to global perp contracts through an affiliate. The demand for perps on Kalshi has been overwhelming since the launch, with a spokesperson revealing that the waitlist to access perps had over 1 million people at one point. It is now considered the fastest growing product in the company’s history, taking only 40 months to reach $1 billion in trading volumes across its event contracts.
The introduction of perpetuals marks Kalshi’s most significant product launch since its inception of prediction markets. The company’s CEO, Tarek Mansour, will be appearing on CNBC’s “Fast Money” to discuss this groundbreaking achievement. It is worth noting that CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.
Overall, Kalshi’s success with its perpetual futures highlights the growing demand for innovative trading products in the U.S. market. With regulatory approval and a surge in trading volumes, Kalshi has solidified its position as a key player in the trading industry.
