Kalshi is pushing its regulated-perpetual play beyond crypto — and setting up a more direct clash with Robinhood.
According to Reuters, the U.S. prediction-markets platform is in advanced talks with regulators to offer perpetual futures tied to traditional assets, beginning with gold and expanding into foreign exchange and energy. Kalshi is also evaluating future products linked to stock indices and single equities. The move extends the same perpetual-derivatives approach it first deployed in crypto markets.
Perpetual futures differ from traditional futures by having no expiration date, letting traders hold positions indefinitely without rolling contracts. Kalshi was one of the first regulated U.S. venues to launch crypto perpetuals, which Reuters says have already produced roughly $16.1 billion in trading volume — momentum the firm wants to replicate in conventional markets.
Kalshi’s chief risk officer, Udesh Jha, told Reuters customer demand is guiding the product roadmap. Gold stands out as an early target because it attracts both retail and institutional interest. Jha also flagged FX, metals and energy as natural extensions, noting that geopolitical events and seasonal patterns help sustain trading demand across those sectors.
The expansion comes amid growing scrutiny of prediction and event-based markets. Google recently updated its Chrome Web Store rules to ban browser extensions that enable real-money transactions on predictive outcomes, with the policy taking effect Aug. 1, 2026 — a response industry observers link to ongoing legal and regulatory disputes involving platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket.
Kalshi’s push places it in clearer competition with Robinhood, which this month rolled out multi-asset perpetual futures via Bitstamp. Robinhood’s offering lets eligible users trade cryptocurrencies, commodities, equity indices and FX using a single collateral pool, and the firm reportedly is pursuing U.S. approvals to offer perpetuals natively. Robinhood has also been beefing up crypto infrastructure: its Robinhood Chain saw $500 million in daily Uniswap volume within eight days of launch and has surpassed about $106 million in total value locked on an Arbitrum-powered network.
If regulators greenlight Kalshi’s proposals, the regulated perpetuals market could quickly get more crowded as both Kalshi and Robinhood expand into commodities, currencies, equities and digital assets under regulated frameworks. For Kalshi, starting with heavily traded markets like gold would leverage the traction from its crypto perpetuals while addressing demand from traders seeking multi-asset exposure.
Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news
