kalshi

According to Politico, citing three informed sources, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating former Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, related to his trading on the prediction market platform Kalshi. The relevant trades occurred between December 2024 and January 2025, completed through a Kalshi account associated with Kinzinger. He confirmed to the media that he had placed bets on contracts regarding whether he would receive a presidential pardon, while also betting on another contract about whether Biden would issue preemptive pardons before leaving office.In the final moments before Biden left office in January 2025, he issued preemptive pardons to Kinzinger and other members of the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot. Screenshots provided by Kinzinger show that he made a profit of $823 from approximately 25 trades, most of which were losses. He denied any wrongdoing, stating that he had been out of office for two years at the time of the bets, was neither a congressman nor a candidate, and had "no insider information." He also stated that he had read Kalshi's rules in advance and understood that they prohibit users from trading contracts directly related to their own interests. Kalshi prohibits users from betting on contracts in which they are direct participants, and the CFTC also prohibits the use of significant non-public information in its regulated markets.Kalshi had previously handled similar cases, suspending three congressional candidates in April for betting on their own campaigns, and freezing former Congressman George Santos's account, which was referred to the CFTC and the Department of Justice, leading to a lifetime ban at the end of August.

Cathie Wood's Ark Invest currently holds a direct position in Kalshi through three ETFs: ARKK, ARKW, and ARKF. Ark Invest expects that the annual trading volume in the mid-term forecast market will reach between $1 trillion and $5 trillion.Ark Invest stated that although Kalshi is still a private company, it hopes to allow its investors to participate early.

According to The Block, the prediction market platform Kalshi will terminate its trading volume incentive program, effective no earlier than October 13. This information comes from documents submitted by Kalshi to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).The program pays rewards to traders from a reward pool based on their share of qualified trading volume, aimed at enhancing liquidity. Kalshi is an event contract trading platform regulated by the CFTC.

Market operator Kalshi is negotiating a round of $1 billion financing, targeting a valuation of $40 billion. Existing investors Sequoia Capital and Wellington Management are discussing leading the round, with Tiger Global and Dragoneer Investment Group also participating in the talks. This round of financing has not yet been completed, and the final list of investors and closing date have not been announced.In October 2025, Kalshi raised $300 million at a valuation of $5 billion, and in May 2026, it completed a $1 billion financing at a valuation of $22 billion. On September 25, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals made a ruling unfavorable to Kalshi in a lawsuit involving Ohio and Tennessee, allowing the two states to regulate its sports contracts under gambling laws. Kalshi claims that its products are regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

According to Cointelegraph, the prediction market platform Kalshi won an important ruling from the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing it to continue operating its event contracts in Ohio and Tennessee.The ruling involves a dispute between Kalshi and the relevant state regulatory agencies regarding whether event contracts can continue to be offered. Cointelegraph stated that the court ruled to allow Kalshi's event contracts to continue operating in the aforementioned two states.

According to a 46-page report from financial investment data company PitchBook, the market platform Kalshi has a baseline scenario valuation of approximately $30.4 billion, a peak valuation of about $42.1 billion during strong market performance, and a pessimistic scenario of $22.8 billion. Kalshi completed a $1 billion Series F financing in May this year, with a post-money valuation of $22 billion.PitchBook expects Kalshi's revenue to reach $6.4 billion by 2030, with adjusted profits reaching $3.7 billion, and believes that partnerships with platforms and market makers such as Robinhood and Susquehanna will help consolidate market share. The report lists the regulatory risks of the sports prediction market as a key variable affecting valuation, with data showing that the sports market currently contributes about 69.9% of Kalshi's event fee revenue; if Exotics products such as multi-event combinations are included, the proportion rises to 82.4%.Several states in the U.S. and Native American tribes are suing over the legality of Kalshi's sports prediction products, and related cases have created discrepancies between federal appellate courts, with the Supreme Court expected to intervene next year. PitchBook believes that even if the final ruling is unfavorable to Kalshi, the company may still adjust its business model through state-level licensing and the development of non-sports prediction products, but a significant decline in sports revenue will still notably impact its growth expectations.

Democratic members of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee sent a letter to the committee's chairman, Republican Senator Tim Scott, calling for a congressional hearing on prediction markets. The Democrats stated in the letter that the committee has a "critical oversight responsibility" in regulating prediction markets and emphasized that Congress should examine prediction markets through public hearings on a bipartisan basis, rather than in closed-door roundtable meetings limited to Republicans and industry-friendly discussions. Senators including Elizabeth Warren signed the letter.On the same day, Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee met with Tarek Mansour, CEO of the prediction market platform Kalshi. Scott stated in a statement to The Block that he convened Republican lawmakers to meet with Kalshi to better understand the opportunities and challenges presented by securities-linked products. The two sides discussed keeping innovation within the United States, how investors use these products, protecting retail investors, and regulatory issues that Congress should address. Kalshi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Currently, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) advocates for a leading role in the regulation of prediction markets but faces opposition from various states, which claim jurisdiction over sports event contracts. The Senate Banking Committee, on the other hand, has jurisdiction over the SEC and is responsible for regulating "securities-linked products" related to prediction markets. Democrats pointed out that the bets offered by such products, which are linked to company performance metrics, may fall under the SEC's regulatory scope. It has been reported that Cboe Global Markets is seeking SEC approval for its listing of "all-or-nothing options" linked to company earnings results.

The Federal Register of the United States published today a rule filing notice from KalshiEX LLC (Kalshi), stating that the prediction market platform has submitted a proposed rule change to the SEC, claiming immediate effectiveness. The content is the addition of Chapter 14 to the rules manual, aimed at listing "Perpetual Securities Futures Products" (Perpetual SFPs).The contracts have no fixed expiration date, and the contract price is anchored near the spot price of the underlying U.S. stocks or ETFs through periodic funding fees from both long and short parties. Kalshi qualifies it as a securities future, planned to be cleared by its clearing platform Kalshi Klear. The listing threshold is relatively high, requiring the underlying to have a deliverable supply of over 20 million shares, a market capitalization of at least $100 billion, and an average daily trading volume of at least $450 million over the past six months, with contract units mostly being 100 shares.

According to The Wall Street Journal, traders on the prediction market platform Kalshi have executed nearly 1 million trades of nearly identical amounts in a single market since August, an unusual activity that has drawn the attention of federal regulators and traders. Kalshi stated that these trades represent normal activity, and the company does not disclose the identities of traders in its public data.The Wall Street Journal's analysis of publicly available trading data found that in recent weeks, more than one-third of trades in the Ethereum price speculation market consisted of rapid trades around the same order size of approximately $5,500. These rapid trades, all close to $5,500, occurred in a single Kalshi market, totaling about $5 billion.

According to CNBC, the prediction market platform Kalshi has submitted an application to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) through its clearing agency Kalshi Klear, seeking to introduce margin trading for certain event contracts, allowing eligible traders to use leverage.Currently, event contracts on U.S. regulated exchanges require full collateral, and while Kalshi has offered leverage in its perpetual futures business, it has not yet been authorized to apply this to the prediction market. Kalshi stated that this feature aims to attract more institutional liquidity and, if approved, will only be available to self-clearing members that meet capital requirements, excluding sports, cultural, and "mention-type" markets. The company also plans to increase margin requirements as contracts approach expiration.

According to the official API data released by Kalshi, most of the dollar trading volume in the Ethereum perpetual contract trading on this exchange comes from a single recurring fixed-size order.In response, Kalshi stated that its related incentive program has been publicly filed. This data was compiled by The Defiant based on Kalshi's public API data.

IcoBeast.eth, the head of Kalshi's cryptocurrency business, posted a statement addressing external concerns regarding Kalshi's cryptocurrency prediction market trading volume fraud and self-clearing members (SCM) of perpetual contracts. He stated that the Artemis chart shows the proportion of prediction market trading volume, not the trading volume of perpetual contracts; Kalshi will not provide rebates for the cryptocurrency prediction market, and the calculation method for the number of contracts and notional amounts in the prediction market is consistent with other prediction markets, thus making it comparable.Regarding the claim that "SCM is a market maker selected by Kalshi," he stated that this is not true. Any institution that meets regulatory requirements can become a self-clearing member of a CFTC-regulated exchange, and "fair access" is also one of the regulatory requirements. He also mentioned that all exchanges improve liquidity through rebates and incentive programs, including CME, Hyperliquid, and Binance. As for Kalshi's perpetual contract business, he acknowledged that it is still in the early stages but stated that unlike offshore perpetual contract trading platforms, Kalshi needs to publicly disclose incentive programs, so the relevant incentive arrangements can be publicly viewed.

The prediction market Kalshi has submitted proposed rule changes to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and filed for approval with the CFTC to launch perpetual futures contracts anchored to individual U.S. stocks. This proposal echoes the application submitted by Coinbase on the same day, as both companies aim to introduce popular perpetual futures products from the crypto market into the traditional stock market.According to the proposal, the relevant contracts will not have a preset expiration date and will maintain price consistency with the underlying stocks through periodic funding payments between long and short positions. Kalshi stated that these contracts will be treated as securities futures products and will be cleared through its CFTC-registered clearinghouse, Kalshi Klear. Previously, Kalshi has offered perpetual futures anchored to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP in the U.S., with its Bitcoin perpetual contract receiving CFTC approval in May of this year.The competition for U.S. stock individual perpetual futures is expanding. Kraken's parent company Payward has also submitted an application through its Bitnomial Exchange, planning to initially offer perpetual futures anchored to 10 U.S. stocks, including Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, and is committed to achieving trading five days a week, 24 hours a day. These applications were submitted after the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the Senate on September 15, with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins stating that regardless of legislation, the agency will act decisively within its existing statutory authority to provide regulatory certainty for investors and entrepreneurs.

The prediction market platform Kalshi is seeking to raise at least $750 million at a valuation of $40 billion, doubling its valuation of $22 billion six months ago. The platform was approved by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a designated contract market in 2021.As of September 4, Kalshi's trading volume over the past 30 days reached $14.1 billion, while Polymarket's was $3.1 billion, with Kalshi accounting for approximately 82% of the combined trading volume. Over 80% of Kalshi's trading volume comes from sporting events.

Bitcoin News posted on platform X that after the CFTC approved Kalshi's Bitcoin perpetual contracts as futures products, traders face uncertainty on how to report gains to the IRS.If the product is classified as a regulated futures contract under Section 1256 of the U.S. Tax Code, related gains are typically treated as 60% long-term capital gains and 40% short-term capital gains, regardless of the holding period. CME believes that Kalshi's perpetual contracts are actually swaps, which are explicitly not covered under Section 1256. The CFTC's classification supports the view that it is a futures product, but does not bind the IRS; the tax treatment remains uncertain until the IRS, Congress, or the courts directly address Bitcoin perpetual contracts.

According to Bloomberg, Riot Games, a subsidiary of Tencent, is the developer of popular video games such as League of Legends and Valorant. According to informed sources, the company recently discussed esports sponsorship collaboration with two major prediction market operators, Kalshi and Polymarket.Riot Games spokesperson Joe Hixson stated in an email that prediction markets are an emerging field, and the company is evaluating them with a focus on maintaining the integrity of competitive events, the potential value to teams, the impact on fan experience, and alignment with the overall ecosystem goals.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) stated in its latest risk report that major prediction market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi have not obtained the necessary authorization to provide event contract services in the EU, and some platforms only restrict users from certain EU countries. ESMA questioned the effectiveness of their geographical restrictions and VPN blocking measures.ESMA pointed out that event contracts may be classified as financial instruments based on their specific structure, fall under the MiCA framework, or be regulated by member states' betting regulations. If classified as financial instruments, their marketing, distribution, and sale to retail investors are generally subject to existing binary options restrictions.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Kalshi plans to seek regulatory approval to offer regulated perpetual futures linked to individual stocks such as Tesla, Apple, and Nvidia.