Kalshi says CFTC has not contacted it over $5B Ether perpetuals activity
Prediction market Kalshi said the CFTC has not reached out about roughly $5 billion in Ether perpetual trades it attributes to liquidity incentives, denying wash trading.
Kalshi has not been contacted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission about a burst of trading that drew market attention, the prediction market said. The activity involved Ether perpetual contracts and totaled close to $5 billion, according to the platform.
Kalshi said the similarly sized trades were the result of its liquidity incentive programs, which reward participants for providing depth and activity. It denied that the trading constituted wash trading, a practice in which orders are matched to create artificial volume without a genuine change in ownership.
Regulatory backdrop
Kalshi operates as a CFTC-regulated exchange for event contracts. The CFTC has generally focused on market integrity and volume reporting in derivatives markets, including crypto-related products.
Questions about whether reported trading volume reflects real liquidity have become more common in crypto markets, and exchanges often point to incentive programs to explain patterns in activity. No enforcement action related to the Kalshi activity has been announced.