Prediction-market platform Kalshi surpassed $1 billion in cumulative trading volume within roughly a week of launching perpetual futures contracts, becoming the first CFTC-regulated US exchange to offer leveraged Bitcoin and crypto perps on home soil.
Until now, the perpetuals market — a roughly $90 trillion-a-year asset class globally — has existed almost entirely offshore, with US traders routed through unregulated or lightly-regulated venues. Kalshi's launch puts that flow inside federal oversight, with KYC, leverage disclosures, and liquidation-risk dashboards built into the product from day one. Co-founder Tarek Mansour framed the design choice directly: perpetuals strip out the "by when" requirement of dated futures, letting traders hold a directional view as long as they fund the position.
Why it matters
Perpetuals are the dominant derivative structure in crypto, accounting for the bulk of BTC and ETH trading volume globally, but US retail has had no federally-supervised on-ramp. Kalshi's entry closes that gap and brings the product under the same regulator that oversees the rest of US derivatives — meaning margin rules, surveillance, and dispute resolution apply rather than discretionary operator discretion.
The CFTC imprimatur is also the gating signal for institutional desks and RIAs that have been blocked from allocating client capital to offshore perps for compliance reasons. A regulated venue materially widens the addressable buyer set.
Market impact
Watch funding rates as the cleanest signal of positioning skew on Kalshi's books — negative funding on a contract means shorts are paying longs, a structural tell that the majority of participants agree with the bearish side. Liquidation-price visibility and adjustable stop-losses are platform-native, lowering the operational risk that has historically pushed retail toward offshore books offering higher leverage with weaker guardrails.
The near-term test is whether regulated status compresses the leverage ceiling US traders will tolerate. Offshore venues routinely offer 50x-100x; Kalshi's leverage caps sit well below that, which may slow volume migration from existing books but improves survivability for under-collateralised accounts.
Frequently asked questions
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Is Kalshi the first CFTC-regulated US exchange to offer crypto perps?
Yes. Kalshi launched perpetual futures on Bitcoin and other crypto assets as the first CFTC-regulated US venue to offer leveraged perps under federal oversight, surpassing $1B in cumulative trading volume within roughly a week of launch.
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How big is the global perpetual futures market?
Perpetual futures trade over $90 trillion in annual volume globally according to the Kalshi announcement — almost entirely on offshore venues that US retail previously could not access in a regulated structure.
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What is the difference between perps and regular futures?
Regular futures have an expiration date, requiring traders to be right on both direction and timing. Perpetuals never expire — traders hold a directional view as long as they fund the position, paying or receiving a funding rate to keep the trade open indefinitely.
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What are funding rates on perpetual futures?
Funding rates are periodic payments between longs and shorts that keep the perp price anchored to the underlying spot price. When funding is positive, longs pay shorts; when negative, shorts pay longs. The sign of the rate signals which side the majority of the market is on.
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How does leverage work on Kalshi perps?
Traders deposit margin and choose a leverage multiplier — $1,000 of margin at 5x controls a $5,000 position, so a 10% move in the asset becomes a 50% move in collateral either direction. Kalshi surfaces a liquidation-price dashboard and supports adjustable stop-losses to manage the risk.
Benjamin Cowen
CoinTelegraph
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