Kalshi launches 6x crypto perpetuals as Supreme Court weighs its fate

Kalshi began offering leveraged crypto perpetuals on 17 assets this week, adding a second regulatory front as New Jersey asks the Supreme Court to decide whether its contracts fall under federal or state law.

"Kalshi is an open, nationwide financial exchange. It cannot be regulated by 50 different regulators," Dani Lever, a Kalshi spokesperson, said. "We remain confident in the lower courts' rulings."

The perpetuals, announced Sept. 4 on the Kalshi Crypto account, cover BTC, ETH, BNB, LINK and 14 other tokens with leverage up to 6x for eligible US traders. The launch follows a year in which Kalshi's US traffic climbed 1,520 percent to 15.4 million visits in July, with sports contracts driving 83 percent of volume, Similarweb data cited by Cointelegraph shows. Notional monthly volume reached about $40 billion in August, up from $874 million a year earlier.

The stakes are legal as much as commercial. Kalshi operates as a designated contract market registered with the CFTC and argues federal commodities law preempts state gambling rules. New Jersey filed a petition Sept. 2 asking the Supreme Court to overturn an April Third Circuit ruling that sided with Kalshi, after the Ninth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion in a Nevada case. A ruling that treats sports contracts as state-regulated bets would threaten the 83 percent of volume they generate and test whether the CFTC can shield the new crypto perpetuals.

A Circuit Split Over Who Regulates Kalshi

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and Mary Jo Flaherty, interim director of the state Division of Gaming Enforcement, argue the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act did not federalize sports gambling. The Third Circuit in April found Kalshi's sports-event contracts fit the federal definition of swaps because game outcomes carry economic consequences; the Ninth Circuit, ruling Aug. 28 in a Nevada dispute, called the same contracts sports bets and let the state enforce its licensing laws.

That split, plus rulings in Michigan, Massachusetts and Washington, has drawn roughly 20 states into litigation. New Jersey's petition says 44 states and tribal gaming interests oppose the industry's federal-preemption theory. The Supreme Court has not agreed to hear the case.

Kalshi has drawn its own line: it will not list markets on whether the court takes the case or its outcome, a spokesperson told Barron's, because Kalshi is a party and its legal team could influence the result.

Crypto Perpetuals Open a Second Front

The crypto perpetuals push Kalshi into territory the CFTC oversees for conventional derivatives, at a moment the agency is weighing perpetual structures more broadly. In June the CFTC sought comment on 24/7 trading and perpetual contracts tied to physically delivered energy commodities; in July it halted a CME Group contract meant to bring 24/7 crude oil futures trading. Bloomberg reported Kalshi is preparing its own CFTC filing for a WTI crude oil perpetual that would never expire.

The platform is also moving toward tokenized stocks and gold, and it expanded internationally in June through a Wealthsimple partnership that opened about 4,000 contracts to Canadian users. Ondo Finance separately urged the SEC and CFTC in late August to allow perpetual futures on individual stocks on regulated US venues.

For Kalshi, the two fronts now run in parallel. Sports contracts built the traffic base — US visits rose from under 1 million in August 2025 to 15.4 million in July — while the crypto perpetuals test whether a CFTC-registered market can carry leveraged digital-asset derivatives before the Supreme Court settles the underlying jurisdictional question. The outcome will set precedent for how exchanges bring perpetual structures onshore.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.