Kalshi asked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday for approval to launch perpetual futures tracking a U.S. large-cap equity index, extending its push beyond prediction markets. The filing follows earlier approvals for crypto perps and a pending bid to add contracts on precious metals and copper.
Kalshi filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday to launch perpetual futures tied to equity indexes, according to the regulatory filing reviewed by CNBC. The proposed "US500" perp would track the MerQube U.S. Large Cap Index, which follows the 500 largest companies listed and based in the U.S.
Kalshi expands beyond crypto perps
The equity-index filing extends a rollout that began in late May, when Kalshi first received approval for perpetual futures tied to cryptocurrencies. Last month the company filed a proposal for perps tied to precious metals such as gold and silver, and on Tuesday it also sought approval for perps tied to copper.
Perps are futures-style contracts with no expiration date, where traders do not need to own the underlying asset; funding payments keep the contract price aligned with the market instead. Kalshi said perps carried over $90 trillion in global trading volume in 2025. Its own contracts crossed $1 billion in notional volume within a week of launch.
Exchange stocks react
Shares of CME Group and Cboe Global Markets fell in early June after the CFTC's initial approval of domestic perps, on concern the product could compete with existing futures contracts. CME later sued the CFTC in federal court over that approval. But on Tuesday, CME rose 2% while Cboe gained 0.2%.
Kalshi said it wanted to be seen as a full-fledged, multi-asset financial exchange at the June event. Kalshi engineer Lior Hirschfeld said at a June event launching the firm's perps product: "This is the next step towards building the largest exchange on the planet."
Source: CNBC
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