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1. Kalshi Stock Perps Reach $300 Million in Volume on Day One
Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated prediction market, launched Kalshi stock perps on November 5, offering perpetual futures on more than 50 individual U.S. stocks, including Palantir, Meta, SpaceX and McDonald's. The company says it is the first in the country to offer them, and trading volume passed $300 million within hours of the debut.
The contracts arrived two days after CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said perpetual futures on single equities could trade on CFTC-registered exchanges for the first time. They sit under both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which gives the launch an unusual regulatory profile: a product long associated with offshore crypto venues, now offered by a U.S.-regulated exchange.
The stocks covered are listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Traders who take a position are not buying shares. They are entering a derivative contract whose value follows the price of the underlying stock, which allows a bet on a rise or a fall without owning the equity itself.
The volume figure is notable for the speed at which it arrived. A new exchange product usually needs weeks to build liquidity, and a total above $300 million in the first hours suggests that pent-up demand for this kind of instrument existed among U.S. traders.
2. What Is a Perpetual Future?
A perpetual future is a derivative that tracks an asset's price and has no expiration date. Ordinary futures contracts end on a set day and must be settled or rolled into a new contract; a perpetual contract can be held for as long as the trader keeps the position open and meets margin requirements.
That design lets a trader take a view on a stock's direction without buying it. Kalshi says its contracts carry no rollover costs, avoid the strike prices and time decay that come with options, and make shorting as easy as buying. In practice, a trader who thinks a stock will fall can open a short position as simply as one who expects a rise can open a long one.
Perps became the dominant way to trade crypto on offshore exchanges, and the stock versions follow the same logic. Kalshi has taken the product in stages. The CFTC approved its bitcoin perpetual contract in May, and the company says it added gold and silver perps in September. The single-stock contracts extend that line of business from crypto and metals to equities.
The company says the stock contracts took more than a year to develop. Co-founder and chief operating officer Luana Lopes Lara described the rollout that morning as a stealth launch, and in a post on X she called it one of the most consequential products Kalshi has released.
3. Why Do Regulators Treat These as Security Futures?
The legal route matters as much as the product. Under CFTC rules, the contracts were deemed approved as security futures, a class of product that Congress created in 2000. Security futures are contracts on single securities, and they fall under the oversight of both the CFTC and the SEC.
The dual oversight is the reason the contracts answer to two agencies. Futures are normally the CFTC's territory and stocks the SEC's, and a future on one stock touches both. Because a framework for such products has existed for more than two decades, the CFTC could treat Kalshi's perps within it rather than building a new category from scratch.
On November 3, Selig said that perps on single equities could trade on CFTC-registered exchanges for the first time. He said the products give U.S. traders an onshore alternative rather than pushing them toward offshore venues, which he characterized as often unregulated. The statement set up the Kalshi launch two days later.
For a prediction market, the move marks a widening of scope. Kalshi built its name on contracts about the outcome of events. Offering exposure to the prices of individual companies puts it in competition with brokerages and derivatives venues in a way that event contracts did not.
4. How Large Is the Offshore Market Kalshi Is Targeting?
Kalshi says annual trading in single-stock perps exceeds $4.5 trillion, all of it taking place on offshore venues until now. The figure comes from the company rather than from an independent source, and it should be read as Kalshi's own estimate of the opportunity.
If the estimate is anywhere near accurate, the pitch is straightforward: a substantial pool of trading that U.S. customers could only reach through platforms outside U.S. oversight might move to a regulated exchange. Selig made the same argument from the regulator's side, describing the onshore option as an alternative to venues that often operate without regulation.
Whether volume actually migrates will depend on factors the launch does not settle, including the leverage available, the fees charged and how the product compares in depth and pricing with its offshore counterparts. Kalshi says leverage is set under CFTC rules and is significantly lower than in offshore perp products, which is a trade-off: less leverage means less risk, and also less appeal to traders who want large positions on small amounts of capital.
5. How Does Kalshi Pitch the Product to Traders?
Kalshi charges a trading fee and does not take payment for order flow. That second point is a deliberate contrast with the revenue model behind many retail brokerage apps, in which a firm routes customer orders to a market maker that pays for the right to execute them. By charging a fee directly, Kalshi presents itself as a venue whose income does not depend on selling its customers' orders.
Leverage under the contracts is set under CFTC rules. The company's announcement says the levels are significantly lower than those in offshore perp products. For a retail trader this means a smaller multiple on posted margin, which reduces the chance of a rapid liquidation but also limits the potential return on a given amount of capital.
The remaining features Kalshi highlights are structural. There is no expiry, so a position does not have to be rolled. There are no strike prices to choose and no time decay eroding the value of the contract, as happens with options. Shorting is as simple as buying. These attributes make the contracts easy to understand compared with options, though they do not reduce the underlying risk that the stock moves against the trader.
6. What Did Analysts Expect Before the Launch?
The move had been anticipated. Lorenzo Valente, director of research for digital assets at ARK Invest, said in an October appearance on the Unchained podcast that he expected stock perps to be approved. He also predicted that Coinbase, Robinhood and Backpack would compete in the space.
That forecast frames the Kalshi debut as the opening move rather than the endpoint. If other platforms follow, the U.S. market for equity perps could become crowded quickly, and the competitive questions would turn to fees, leverage limits, listed stocks and the quality of the price index that settles each contract.
Kalshi enters that competition as the first mover, a position it has used to claim a lead in onshore perps. The company's earlier crypto perps gave it a base of experience with the product before extending it to stocks, which may help it manage the operational demands of a contract that never expires and must continuously track an external price.
7. What Should Traders Understand About the Risks?
A contract that tracks a stock without owning it carries risks that differ from buying shares. A trader holds a derivative, not an asset, so the position has no voting rights or dividends attached, and the value depends on how the exchange sets its reference price for the underlying stock. Kalshi's contracts are priced against an index, and the quality of that index determines how closely the contract follows the real market.
Margin is the other central concept. A trader posts a fraction of the position's value as collateral, and if the market moves against the position far enough, the exchange closes it to protect itself. Lower leverage, which Kalshi says applies to its contracts, widens the distance between entry and forced closure, but it does not remove the possibility of losing the full amount posted.
There is also the matter of who is trading. Perpetual futures grew up among crypto traders who are accustomed to round-the-clock markets and leveraged positions. Bringing the format to listed equities opens it to a wider group of U.S. customers, some of whom may be unfamiliar with derivatives. The onshore setting brings regulatory oversight, disclosure obligations and a defined set of rules, which is the main point of Selig's argument, but oversight does not change the fact that leveraged products can produce losses quickly.
None of this is specific to Kalshi. It describes the general nature of the instrument, and it is the context against which the first-day volume figure should be read: large numbers show activity and interest, not that the activity is profitable for those taking part.
8. What Comes Next for Onshore Equity Perps?
The immediate question is whether the early volume persists. A first-day total above $300 million shows interest, but exchanges often see heavy activity at launch that settles into a steadier pattern afterward. Kalshi has not given details beyond the opening figure, and the amounts after the first hours are not known.
The second question is whether competitors enter. Valente named Coinbase, Robinhood and Backpack as likely participants, and under the CFTC's framework any registered exchange could seek to list similar contracts. The more venues that offer them, the more the market will test Selig's argument that traders prefer an onshore option.
The third is how regulators respond as usage grows. The products fall under two agencies, and the combination of retail access, leverage and individual stocks is likely to attract attention from both. For now, the central facts are clear: the CFTC cleared the path on November 3, Kalshi launched on November 5, and U.S. traders gained a regulated way to trade perpetual contracts on dozens of well-known companies.