Prediction Market Site Kalshi Now Offering Perpetual Futures
Mike Goodpaster Published 09/06/2026
Perpetual futures could be the future for prediction market sites. Prediction market site Kalshi has already been approved by the CFTC to launch perpetual future contracts, also known in the industry as perps. The company is currently offering crypto perpetuals. Perpetual futures are futures-style contracts with no fixed expiration date.
By providing access to these perpetual futures, Kalshi is delivering to U.S. traders a legal and regulated option to play these markets. Traditionally, illegal offshore platforms are the dominant performers in these markets. Perpetual futures contracts are designed to track the price of an underlying asset continuously. Funding payments keep the perp price aligned with the market.
Kalshi is the first CFTC-regulated perpetual futures exchange in the U.S. market
Kalshi announced that it would be entering the perpetual futures market on June 3. It is licensed to do so by the federal Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The company is the first prediction market site in the USA to do so.
As of June 3, 2026, Kalshi currently offers 13 CFTC-approved perpetual futures contracts across major cryptocurrencies. They include Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, Chainlink, Litecoin, Sui, Polkadot, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, and Hedera.
What are perpetual futures?
Basically, a perpetual future is a derivative contract that lets someone take a position on the price of a crypto asset without owning it and without facing an expiration date. For example, if someone thinks that the price of Bitcoin is going up, they can go with a long position. If they think it's going down, then they take a short position.
Unlike a traditional futures contract, which would lock someone into a set price on a specific date, a perpetual future has no set end date. A person can hold it for as long as they want and close it when they're ready to do so.
To get more specific, let's suppose Bitcoin is trading at $100,000 on the spot market. If a trader believes that the price will go up, they take a long position on a Bitcoin perpetual future. Now, let's say they use $10,000 of collateral and 2x leverage, so $20,000 in total exposure.
If Bitcoin rises to $110,000 over the next week, that's a 10% move. The trader in this instance will realize a $2,000 profit on their $10,000 collateral. In a traditional spot market, that same Bitcoin trade would have generated only a $1,000 profit.
When trading in perpetual futures, there's no time frame in place. It can be for a day, a week, a month, or a year. The perpetual future never reaches an expiry date.
Weighing perpetual futures vs prediction market sites
With a perpetual future, a trader is making a leveraged directional bet on the price of an asset, such as Bitcoin rising or falling. There is no forced expiry on this market.
With a prediction market, players are trading the probability of a specific event happening. The contract resolves definitively when the event does or does not occur.
The settlement process with a perpetual futures market is continuous. With a prediction market site, there is a one-time resolution when the event does or does not occur.
Perpetual markets are fairly limited in scope. They offer one product, which is directional price speculation on crypto. By contrast, prediction market sites offer a wide-ranging array of trading on the outcome of real-world events - everything from sports to politics to today's weather forecast.