Kalshi, a prediction market platform, has filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to introduce perpetual futures contracts linked to equity indexes, specifically the MerQube U.S. Large Cap Index, which includes the 500 largest U.S. companies.
This follows its earlier approval for perpetual futures related to cryptocurrencies and its recent proposals for contracts tied to precious metals and industrial metals like copper.
The introduction of perpetual futures, which do not expire and allow traders to speculate without owning the underlying asset, represents a shift in the U.S. market, which previously lacked domestic offerings of this asset class.
Kalshi reported that perpetual futures had a global volume exceeding $90 trillion in 2025, and its own contracts surpassed $1 billion in notional volume shortly after launch. The approval of these contracts has raised concerns among traditional exchanges like CME Group and CBOE Global Markets, leading to a decline in their stock prices earlier this year due to fears of increased competition.
However, shares of these exchanges saw gains in early trading following Kalshi's announcement, with CME up 2% and CBOE rising 0.8%. Kalshi aims to position itself as a comprehensive multi-asset financial exchange, with its engineer Lior Hirschfeld stating that this initiative is a step towards building a leading global exchange