Kalshi to file for US crude oil perpetual contract
Kalshi is preparing to file for a perpetual West Texas Intermediate crude oil contract with the CFTC, according to a source familiar with the matter. The product would trade around the clock five days a week without an expiration date. It would let traders hold oil exposure without rolling monthly contracts. The filing marks Kalshi's expansion from event contracts into energy derivatives. Bitcoin perpetuals approval drew a CME lawsuit against the CFTC in June.
Kalshi's crude oil filing lands one day after Polymarket launched live Brent and WTI perpetuals with 20x leverage. Traders now have two venues racing for the same crude exposure, but only Kalshi's would sit under full CFTC registration with US retail access. For CME, this is a second front: it already sued the CFTC over Kalshi's bitcoin perps, and now a core commodity contract faces competition from a prediction-market platform.
Kalshi clears this faster than CME can adapt its dated futures structure, it captures retail and institutional flows that currently roll monthly. The winner sets margin and fee templates the other must match. CME's only leverage is regulatory delay, and the CFTC just asked a judge to dismiss its last lawsuit.
Kalshi's crude oil filing follows its stock-index and copper perpetual futures filing two weeks earlier, making this the second commodity derivative the platform has pushed to the CFTC this month and deepening its challenge to CME's perpetual futures monopoly.