Kalshi launched a stock index perpetual future on October 6, 2026, tracking its US 500 index of 500 of the largest US companies weighted by market capitalization, Reuters reported. Kalshi announced the launch the same day on X, calling it "the first stock index perpetual future in America." The contract is the prediction market's first move into equities, according to Dow Jones Newswires' Market Talk coverage.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved the US500PERP contract on October 3, three days before launch, according to the regulator's product database as reported by CoinGape and AltcoinBuzz. The contract tracks the MerQube US Large Cap Index, is cash-settled, carries no fixed expiration date, and clears through Kalshi Klear, Kalshi's CFTC-registered derivatives clearing organization, per the same reports. Kalshi had filed with the CFTC for the product in August, Reuters reported.
Perpetual futures, or perps, differ from conventional futures in that they never expire, letting traders hold positions indefinitely without rolling contracts over, Reuters explained. Periodic funding payments exchanged between traders holding long and short positions keep the contract's price aligned with the underlying index, and Kalshi said the contract lets traders take leveraged long or short positions on the US 500.
"Stock market exposure is the next step towards Kalshi becoming a full-service financial exchange, and perps are the best way for our traders to get this exposure," CEO Tarek Mansour said in a statement, according to Reuters. Dow Jones Newswires quoted a Kalshi press release with a longer version of the pitch: "With prediction markets, you get exposure to the events that affect the stock market. The next step is exposure to the stock market itself, and the U.S. 500 perp is the best way for our traders to get it."
The equities push extends a derivatives expansion Kalshi began in May 2026 with cryptocurrency perpetuals, CoinDesk noted. The platform now lists 19 crypto perps, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP, and recently added gold and silver perps, according to CoinGape. Reuters reported last month that Kalshi is preparing to file with US regulators for a perpetual West Texas Intermediate crude oil contract, which would push the perp lineup beyond crypto and metals into energy.
The launch puts Kalshi into more direct competition with traditional derivatives exchanges such as CME Group and Cboe Global Markets, CoinGape and AltcoinBuzz noted. It also lands as Kalshi is reportedly discussing a $1 billion funding round at roughly a $40 billion valuation, a pre-IPO raise Bloomberg reporting surfaced on October 1, according to Blockonomi.
Analysis: the US 500 perp dissolves the line between prediction market and derivatives exchange faster than any product Kalshi has shipped. The venue built its business on yes-or-no event contracts, then used the perp wrapper, a crypto-native instrument, to sell leveraged exposure to crypto, metals, and now the broad US equity market, all inside a CFTC-regulated venue. The open questions are regulatory and competitive: the CFTC's pending swap-definition rulemaking (RIN 3038-AF82) will decide how cleanly these products sit under federal jurisdiction while states keep suing, and incumbents like CME now face a rival that can list an equity index perp and an election contract on the same screen. Watch the WTI crude filing next, and whether Polymarket or the onchain venues answer with their own equity-linked perps.