Kalshi single-stock perpetuals hit $5 billion in volume in 10 days
Kalshi's single-stock perpetual futures reached $5 billion in notional trading volume by November 15, the platform announced. The contracts launched November 5 covering 50 large stocks including Nvidia, SpaceX, and Micron, with leverage up to 4.6x for retail investors and 3.5x for hedge funds. Daily volume on Nvidia contracts alone has exceeded $100 million. The products feature adjustable leverage, no expiration date, and allow directional positions without owning underlying shares.
The $5 billion milestone in just over a week signals that Kalshi has found genuine product-market fit in equity-linked derivatives, creating a revenue stream that could outrun the state gambling litigation threatening its sports and political contracts. The platform is now pulling $100 million daily in a single ticker, Nvidia, which matches the order of magnitude that sustains mid-tier derivatives exchanges. For Kalshi's co-founders, Mansour and Lopes Lara, the equity success arrives weeks before their December 4 felony arraignment in Utah and parallel state suits in Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
If single-stock perpetuals can carry platform volume while state courts freeze event-contract trading, Kalshi may survive a worst-case regulatory scenario with its valuation intact. But the Cboe-Citadel lawsuit and the CFTC's pending swap-rule proposal still threaten the product's legal foundation, so this volume surge could prove either proof of resilience or a head-fake before a court-ordered shutdown. A CFTC loss would force Kalshi to restructure or pull the product entirely.