Bringing Crypto’s Favorite Trade to Wall Street
Kalshi, a derivatives platform best known for election and event contracts, wants to expand into one of the most popular instruments in digital asset markets: perpetual futures. These are leveraged bets on price movements that never expire, allowing traders to hold positions indefinitely as long as they keep funding the contract.
The company has filed plans for roughly 60 perpetual futures contracts tied to individual stocks and exchange-traded funds, according to recent reporting. If regulators approve the request, it would mark a landmark moment — the first U.S.-approved single-stock perpetual futures products ever offered to the public.
Why Traders Want a Market That Never Closes
The appeal is straightforward. Right now, if you want to trade Tesla or Nvidia shares, you can only do so during regular market hours. Perpetual futures could change that entirely, letting investors take leveraged positions on major companies late at night, on weekends, or during holidays.
This matters because after-hours price action sometimes reveals sentiment that the next day’s open fails to capture. A Tesla perpetual contract trading at 2 a.m., for example, could give the market an early signal about where investors think the stock is heading before the bell rings.
Regulatory Firestorm
Not everyone is excited. The core question is jurisdictional: are stock-linked perpetual futures a commodities product governed by the federal commodities regulator, or do they fall under securities law because they reference publicly traded shares?
Kalshi itself has already received approval from the commodities regulator for a bitcoin perpetual contract. That contract was classified as a futures product, but the regulator cautioned that the same framework may not apply across all asset types and that each new product would need its own review.
A leading trading firm pushed back hard in a recent letter, arguing that any product linked to U.S. public companies should fall under securities regulation. The concern is that moving these contracts outside the existing oversight architecture could create a shadow market disconnected from the surveillance systems that monitor stocks, options and other equities instruments. That gap, the firm warned, could make it harder to detect insider trading or manipulation.
The Insider Trading Problem
The risk is easy to picture with a high-profile stock like Nvidia. An employee who knows upcoming earnings results could theoretically trade a perpetual contract while the stock market is shuttered. Likewise, a company could announce major news during a trading halt while its perpetual contract keeps moving — unless the two markets coordinate closely.
Existing rules around trading halts, order handling and market access may not automatically apply if equity-linked perps operate under a different regulatory regime. That is the gap critics are most worried about.
What Happens Next
Kalshi’s push highlights a broader tension: crypto markets were built to trade without stopping, while traditional U.S. markets operate on a fixed schedule. Bridging those two worlds requires not just technological compatibility but a clear regulatory path that protects investors without stifling innovation.
For now, all eyes are on the agencies involved. Their decision could set the precedent for how leveraged, always-on derivatives products are offered in the United States for years to come.
