Kalshi launches its crypto perpetuals in the middle of a legal battle

Kalshi has just reached a milestone. The predictive markets platform recorded 15.4 million visits from the United States in July 2026, compared to just 1 million a year earlier. An increase of 1,520%, according to Similarweb data consulted by Cointelegraph on Friday. Trading volume follows an even faster pace. Around $40 billion in monthly notional volume in August, compared to $874 million a year earlier. But the information that really changes the situation is elsewhere. Kalshi has just launched crypto perpetual contracts, including BTC, ETH, BNB and 14 other assets, up to 6x leverage. A pivot that complicates an already busy regulatory file.

Kalshi: traffic and volumes that make you dizzy

The numbers speak for themselves. US traffic represented almost 80% of Kalshi’s total in July, compared to 72.8% a year earlier. Growth remains overwhelmingly concentrated in the American market. Sports contracts accounted for 83% of July trading volume, Barron’s reported Thursday. On the volume side, the entire prediction markets industry grew from $2 billion to $50.7 billion monthly over the period, with Kalshi alone capturing nearly 79% of the total. So Kalshi didn’t just grow, she sucked up the whole market.

The notable fact here is that trafficking is also increasing from jurisdictions where Kalshi is not allowed to operate directly:

• Canada went from 50,000 to 450,000 visits;
• The United Kingdom from 31,000 to 296,000, while the platform’s user agreement still prohibits direct access from these two countries.

Kalshi got around the problem in June through a partnership with Wealthsimple, which provides access to around 4,000 eligible contracts through a separate app. Clever, but that doesn’t remove the basic question. Who accesses what, and under what authorization?

A dispute that reaches the Supreme Court

While traffic explodesthe courts are busy. New Jersey brought before the US Supreme Court the question of whether Kalshi’s sports contracts fall under federal supervision (thus the CFTC) or state-specific gambling laws. Michigan, for its part, is continuing its own efforts to block the platform. The issue is not cosmetic because if sports contracts are reclassified as betting under state jurisdiction, it is a good part of the Kalshi model, 83% of the volume all the same, which finds itself weakened in its main markets.

Kalshi plays a double-edged card here. On the one hand, it claims the federal status of an event contract market, regulated by the CFTC for years. On the other hand, the bigger the platform gets, the more it attracts the attention of state regulators, who see in this success proof that Kalshi is, in fact, practicing sports betting in disguise.

The crypto pivot that adds a regulator to the equation

And now Kalshi adds a layer. On September 4, the Kalshi Crypto account announced on An extension confirmed the same day by a post relaying the announcement on the network. The platform also pushes, according to the same publications, towards tokenized stocks and gold.

Let’s put it bluntly, the timing is daring because Kalshi is already fighting in the Supreme Court to prove that she is not a disguised bookmaker. And it chooses this precise moment to launch 6x leverage on cryptos, a territory which unambiguously falls under the eye of the CFTC for classic derivatives. Instead of simplifying its regulatory file, Kalshi has just opened a second front. This time in the field of leveraged crypto derivatives, while the first, sports contracts vs gambling, is not even decided yet.

Three facts to remember about Kalshi

• US traffic of +1,520% in one year, 15.4 million visits in July, compared to less than 1 million in August 2025
• Kalshi is around 40 billion dollars, increased to 83% by sports contracts, while the dispute over their status rises to the Supreme Court
• New regulatory front opened at the beginning of September: launch of crypto perpetuals (BTC, ETH, BNB, LINK + 14 assets) up to 6x leverage

Kalshi is therefore growing faster than its regulatory base can keep up. Between the Supreme Court and the CFTC, two fronts are opening at the same time which are sport and crypto. The question is no longer whether a regulator will decide, but which one will tackle it first.