Kalshi is expanding its product set beyond event markets into traditional derivatives, launching a perpetual futures contract tied to its US 500 index that tracks 500 of America’s largest companies. The contract has no expiration, uses daily funding payments and futures-account collateral to align price with the underlying, and debuted with a displayed maximum leverage of 15.3x. CEO Tarek Mansour framed stock-market exposure via perps as the next step toward becoming a full-service financial exchange.
At the same time Kalshi filed with the CFTC for a WTI-linked perpetual that, if approved within the regulator’s 45-day review window, would be the first US-regulated perpetual tied to oil. The proposed product is modeled on offshore perpetuals, anticipates a 24/5 trading schedule, and follows the CFTC’s May 2026 approval of Kalshi’s crypto perpetuals. Approval would offer domestic traders a supervised venue for a structure largely hosted offshore and position Kalshi more directly against traditional exchange operators.