Overview
- Polymarket, which announced perpetual futures on Tuesday, opened early access sign-ups and showed up to 10x leverage in a teaser video.
- Kalshi scheduled a New York launch event for April 27 under the codename “Timeless” and is reported to start with crypto-linked perpetuals such as Bitcoin using U.S. dollar collateral first and stablecoins later.
- Perpetual futures are no-expiration contracts that track an asset’s price and use funding payments between longs and shorts to keep prices in line with spot markets.
- Kalshi holds CFTC approvals and recently gained margin-trading permissions, and CFTC leaders have signaled plans to bring perpetuals under U.S. oversight, creating a path for onshore offerings.
- The moves put prediction-market leaders into direct competition with crypto venues like Coinbase, Robinhood, Binance, and onchain platforms such as Hyperliquid, which together handle the bulk of global perp volume.