Kalshi Seeks CFTC Approval for 58 Stock Perpetual Futures; Markets Lift October Fed Hike Odds to 55%

Kalshi is moving deeper into financial markets, filing with regulators to list perpetual futures tied to 58 U.S. equities while its rate-hike market repriced sharply toward more Federal Reserve tightening. On Sept. 18, the prediction-market exchange submitted materials to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission seeking approval to offer perpetual futures on 58 U.S. stock underlyings—55 common stocks plus Alibaba's ADR and two ETFs, SPY and QQQ. The lineup runs from Apple and ExxonMobil to SpaceX. Each contract represents 100 shares, and Kalshi set minimum customer margin at 15.50% of current market value. The products are securities futures regulated by both the SEC and the CFTC; Kalshi has also registered as a national securities exchange via notice to trade them. The filing was made without a public launch announcement, and no trading has occurred so far. Over the same nine-day window, Kalshi's markets shifted aggressively toward a higher probability of additional Fed tightening. The September rate-hike contract closed at 88% the day before the Fed unanimously delivered a 25-basis-point increase, lifting the target range to 3.75%–4.00% (12–0 vote). As positioning rolled forward, the implied odds of an October hike rose to 55% from 31% nine days earlier; the December contract closed at 67%. Taken together, that pricing implies 1.22 quarter-point hikes across the Oct. 28 and Dec. 9 settlements, more than the committee's median projection of one additional hike across the remaining two meetings. Kalshi's repricing occurred with limited policy messaging. The Fed was in a quiet period from Sept. 5 to Sept. 16; afterward, the only public remarks cited were two Sept. 18 speeches by Michelle Bowman focused on bank regulation. The move coincided with firmer data points, including initial jobless claims falling to 196,000 on Sept. 17 and August retail sales rising 1.2%. Exchange-wide positioning grew as well. Open interest finished at $1.417 billion, up 16.0% from $1.221 billion nine days earlier. Kalshi noted that roughly half of that increase reflected the weekly build-and-reset cycle in Sunday-reset football parlay products. Sports and football parlays represent 63.8% of open contracts. Excluding parlays, open interest rose 8.0% (from 879 million to 949 million contracts) with no weekend pullback. Trading activity and outstanding positions remain concentrated in different parts of the platform. Football parlays account for 58.0% of trading volume but 33.0% of open interest. Crypto represents 14.7% of volume and 1.6% of open interest. Election-related contracts show the opposite pattern: 24.9% of open interest but only 0.2% of trading volume. Among the 10 markets able to absorb a $5,000 trade with 2% or less price impact, six are nomination contracts. Liquidity measurements also highlight the split between fast-turnover products and slow-burn positioning. Over nine days, cryptocurrencies turned over 115.7 times their average open interest of 22.33 million contracts; football parlays turned over 34.7 times on 294.87 million open contracts. Election-related turnover is roughly one-tenth of order-book size. On the legal front, a Ninth Circuit panel said in Blue Lake Rancheria v. Kalshi that "Kalshi's contracts on sporting events are effectively sports betting, regardless of whether Kalshi calls them swaps," overturning the denial of a preliminary injunction and remanding the case. No court order has blocked products and none have been taken down. Funding and futures metrics moved higher over the latest window covered in the report. Across eight days where both cash and futures records overlap, traders paid $3.5 billion, up 4.6% from $3.34 billion in the prior eight days, while Kalshi reported a 12.3% increase in futures trading volume. The largest single day for funds was Sunday, Sept. 13, at $547.3 million (15.6% of the eight-day total), coinciding with the first full NFL weekend. In economics contracts, activity surged but positions shrank as September Fed contracts settled. Contract volume rose 152.1% to $81.7 million, while open interest fell $32.3 million as 62.3 million September Fed contracts were settled and open interest dropped from 32.5 million to 1.8 million. By product, KXMVECROSSCATEGORY (the "Rugby Parlay Ledger") traded 9.52 billion contracts, 54.1% of total exchange volume, and ended the period with 362.5 million contracts of open interest. In contrast, KXPRESNOMD (the Democratic nomination market) traded 6.8 million contracts, added 6.6 million open positions, and ended with 144.6 million open positions—nearly one open position retained for every contract traded. Kalshi's separate perpetual-futures ledger also expanded. Notional traded volume reached $7.62 billion, up 8.6%, about twice the cash volume traded in event contracts (notional reflects price exposure on leveraged contracts; cash reflects what traders paid for contracts). Within perpetuals, Bitcoin notional traded rose 48.3% to $4.28 billion. Ethereum notional traded fell 24.3% to $2.66 billion even as open interest in Ethereum contracts increased 124.7%, signaling position accumulation. The perpetuals suite is still new. Kalshi launched the U.S.' first perpetual futures on May 29 and exceeded $1 billion in its first week. On Sept. 10, it added gold and silver, its first non-crypto perpetual contracts. Metals also drove the only two funding rate adjustments referenced in the period, both at 04:00 UTC on Sept. 10, when the market maker fee multiplier for a specific metal contract was set to zero and not reversed. New activity during the period was heavily sports-driven: 513 series recorded trading that had not traded in the prior period, led by golf. The PGA Tour ledger traded 26.76 million contracts and held 16.67 million open, while the Davis Cup market traded 26.18 million contracts but held only 140,000—a 119x gap in open interest despite similar volumes. The Fed markets are now the key focus into the next settlements. Kalshi's October hike contract, which closed at 55% on Sept. 18, settles on Oct. 28. The December contract is priced at 67% and settles on Dec. 9.