Kalshi applied to launch US stock index perpetual futures to further enter the traditional exchange market

Comparing news, the prediction market platform Kalshi submitted regulatory documents to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to apply for the launch of perpetual futures linked to stock indices to further expand from the prediction market to the traditional financial derivatives sector.

According to the documents, Kalshi's proposed US500 perpetual futures will track the MerQube US large-cap index, which covers 500 large companies listed in the US. Perpetual futures have no expiration date, traders do not need to hold the underlying asset, and the contract continuously tracks the underlying price through a funding rate mechanism.

At the end of May this year, Kalshi received approval to launch cryptocurrency perpetual futures, which was officially launched in June. The company then applied to launch perpetual futures for precious metals such as gold and silver, and now further applied for perpetual futures on copper and stock indices.

Kalshi said that the global perpetual futures trading volume exceeded 90 trillion US dollars in 2025, and the nominal trading volume surpassed 1 billion US dollars a week after the launch of its own product.

Kalshi's foray into perpetual futures has raised concerns on traditional exchanges. The stock prices of CME Group and Cboe Global Markets were previously pressured by the US approval of domestic perpetual futures, and CME even sued the federal court for related regulatory approvals. At the time of publication, CME was up about 1.26% and Cboe was up about 0.12%.