Kalshi’s crypto perpetuals hit $1B in days after CFTC approval

Kalshi reported its CFTC‑approved perpetual futures surpassed $1 billion in notional trading volume in less than seven days after launch. The company contrasted that pace with about 40 months for its original event‑based prediction markets to reach the same notional level.

The Bitcoin perpetual contract, BTCPERP, went live on June 3 and produced more than $100 million in notional volume in its first 24 hours, Kalshi reported. The company said the reported volumes are notional, which includes leverage common to perpetual products.

Perpetual futures are contracts with no expiration date that let traders speculate on an asset’s price without owning the underlying token. These contracts settle continuously and use periodic funding payments between long and short holders to keep contract prices aligned with the spot market.

The global perpetuals market handles roughly $90 trillion in annual volume, according to market estimates. Before late May, no U.S.‑regulated platform offered perpetuals, so many U.S. retail traders accessed them on offshore exchanges and accepted associated counterparty and legal risks.

On May 29 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved two U.S. firms to offer regulated perpetual futures. Kalshi was among the approved firms and has launched 13 CFTC‑approved perpetual contracts to date. The company said it expects additional approvals for contracts tied to Solana, XRP and Dogecoin, and that a waitlist topped more than one million users before launch.

For comparison, Kalshi’s event‑based prediction markets required roughly 40 months to reach $1 billion in notional volume, a figure the company provided when describing the relative scale of the new product.

Tarek Mansour, Kalshi’s chief executive, described the perpetual product as the fastest‑growing in the company’s history and pointed to the six‑day timeline to $1 billion as evidence of rapid uptake.

Another approved U.S. firm is preparing to offer perpetuals to U.S. customers through an affiliate. Kalshi’s launch adds a regulated option for U.S. retail traders seeking domestic access to continuous‑settlement crypto derivatives.