Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour spoke at Bitcoin 2025, a conference that brings crypto enthusiasts, businesses, and policymakers together to discuss the growing crypto industry. On Tuesday’s panel “Prediction Markets and Truth,” Mansour discussed his company’s product, their lawsuit against the CFTC, and his vision for the future of prediction markets.
Prediction markets as a potentially profitable ‘ecosystem of data’
When asked whether poll workers should be put out of work with prediction markets available, he said no. “The existence of a stock market doesn’t mean that stock analysts should not exist, right?” Mansour said.
While many critics of election polls view prediction markets as a potential replacement, Mansour sees them as one datasource that ideally works in tandem with the data points that prediction markets offer.
“The markets sort of learn from the polls, and they learn from a lot of other data points and a lot of other things going on in the wild,” Mansour said. “My expectation for…the coming years of the industry is sort of like [an] entire ecosystem of data being built [and] people can make money out of it.”
Government agencies already use Kalshi
Near the end of his 20-minute segment, Mansour was asked about future products he’d like Kalshi to offer. He gave a few policy examples that went beyond the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ questions that populate Kalshi today.
“Imagine you ask a market like, ‘what will happen to inflation if we impose these types of tariffs, what will happen to GDP? What will happen to the US economy?’ It’s a market-driven forecast that tells you what will happen if you…make different decisions. That’s a frontier that I’m very, very excited about, because that’s something that’s very, very useful, and…already something useful. [We’re] already sending data to…the Fed, DOGE, a few other agencies in the government to inform some of the sort of policy decisions [that] are being made.”
Federal agencies using Kalshi’s existing markets for data is unsurprising given the links between Kalshi and DOGE. At least one former Kalshi employee has joined DOGE, and Elon Musk’s enthusiasm for prediction markets predates Donald Trump Jr’s role as a Kalshi advisor.
The administration’s use of Kalshi’s data also highlights the enthusiasm for market-based solutions that aligns with American conservatism. It also aligns with the faith in technological solutions to solve difficult problems, like widespread misinformation or siloed information bubbles.
Mansour’s alignment with crypto philosophy
Mansour’s experience of his company suing its main regulator and his vision for Kalshi align with the crypto industry’s values. Kalshi even accepts a growing number of cryptocurrencies, most recently adding Solana.
The CFTC-regulated prediction market platform was also an underdog that took on the establishment. It’s a similar storyline that motivates many Bitcoin and crypto enthusiasts. The crypto guard takes great pride in pitching itself as an alternative to traditional finance. Moreover, it’s an alternative that doesn’t require institutions like traditional brokers that may require a visit to a physical branch to make portfolio changes. Individualism and decentralization of currency are key in the philosophy of the “orange pilled.”
While Kalshi is not a crypto-only platform like Polymarket, Kalshi’s fight for and vision of an information ecosystem parallel to traditional sources of knowledge jives with the minds at the 2025 Bitcoin conference playing out in Las Vegas.
