Kalshi has launched the first-ever perpetual futures contracts available under US regulatory oversight, marking a major expansion beyond its prediction markets business and positioning the company as a broader derivatives exchange.
The New York-based prediction markets platform announced that US investors will soon be able to trade cryptocurrency perpetual futures through a market regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The launch makes Kalshi the first company to offer regulated perpetual futures contracts in the United States, a product that has until now been dominated by offshore crypto exchanges.
Perpetual futures, often referred to as “perps”, allow traders to speculate on whether an asset’s price will rise or fall without owning the underlying asset. Unlike traditional futures contracts, which expire on a set date, perpetual futures have no expiry date and can remain open indefinitely provided traders maintain sufficient collateral.
According to Kalshi, offshore perpetual futures trading volume has exploded from $28 trillion in 2023 to more than $90 trillion in 2025, making it one of the fastest-growing segments of global derivatives markets.
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said:
“This marks Kalshi’s evolution from prediction market leader to next-gen derivatives exchange. Onshore, safe, and regulated perps will improve capital allocation and risk management for countless American businesses.”
Funding costs are one of the key features traders need to understand before using perpetual futures. Because the contracts never expire, exchanges use a funding rate mechanism to keep perpetual prices aligned with the underlying spot market. On Kalshi, funding payments are exchanged between long and short traders every eight hours. When perpetual prices trade above the spot price, long traders pay shorts; when they trade below spot, shorts pay longs.
The cost of funding varies depending on market conditions and sentiment. During periods of strong bullish or bearish positioning, funding rates can become significant and may amount to several percentage points of a position’s value over a week.
Kalshi currently offers perpetual futures on 13 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and XRP, with leverage ranging from around 1.1x to 6.3x depending on the asset. Traders must post margin, or collateral, to open positions and face liquidation if losses exhaust their deposited funds.
The launch represents a significant step in bringing one of crypto’s most popular trading instruments into the regulated US financial system, potentially opening the market to a wider range of retail and institutional participants.
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