Polymarket and Kalshi, the two largest prediction market platforms, are racing to offer perpetual futures on cryptocurrencies and traditional assets, moving deeper into territory long dominated by established cryptocurrency exchanges.
Polymarket, Kalshi Dive Into Crypto Perps
22 April 2026 - 10:20 CEST
Polymarket announced its perpetuals' product on 21 Apr with a video on X featuring the tagline "We price the future. Now you can lever it." The platform allows users to trade leveraged long and short positions on Bitcoin (BTC), major stocks including Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL) and Coinbase (COIN), as well as gold, with leverage options up to 10x and 24/7 trading. It has opened a waiting list for early access.
The announcement followed closely on the heels of rival activity from Kalshi.
Kalshi plans regulated entry
On 13 Apr, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour posted a teaser video on LinkedIn showing a rotating green torus and the word "timeless," with the simple message "Something new." The post pointed to an event in New York City on 27 Apr. While Kalshi has not issued full product specifications, Bloomberg and The Information reported that the CFTC-regulated platform plans to launch perpetual futures tied to cryptocurrency prices, starting with Bitcoin, in the coming weeks. Kalshi intends to accept US dollars initially as collateral before adding stablecoins in the second quarter, following recent approval for margin trading.
Natural evolution for prediction leaders
The moves represent a significant expansion for both firms, which together command roughly 80% of the prediction market sector. Prediction market operators bring unique strengths to the perpetual futures arena: proven crowd-sourced price discovery on real-world events, large existing user bases of retail and institutional traders, and rich real-time data sets that could improve derivatives pricing accuracy.
Unlike traditional binary event contracts that resolve at a fixed date, perpetuals enable continuous leveraged exposure without expiry. This opens the potential for cross-margining – a mechanism that allows traders to share collateral across both prediction market positions and perpetual futures trades on the same platform. Profits in one market can help satisfy margin requirements in the other, improving capital efficiency and reducing the chance of forced liquidations.
The launches occur amid a more accommodative regulatory environment for derivatives in the US following the 2024-2025 policy shifts. Binance continues to dominate the global perpetual futures market, routinely processing tens of billions of dollars in daily volume. By blending event-based expertise with continuous trading, Polymarket and Kalshi are positioning themselves at the intersection of betting and derivatives, potentially attracting new liquidity and reshaping exposure to crypto and traditional assets for both retail and institutional participants.
Both platforms are expected to roll out final product details in the coming weeks, with Kalshi’s New York event likely to provide additional clarity.
