Kalshi stated that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has not reached out to the firm and that it believes no formal examination into its trading has been initiated, countering claims of regulatory scrutiny regarding trading patterns on the prediction platform.
Elisabeth Diana, a spokesperson for Kalshi, remarked in an official statement, “We have not been contacted by the CFTC and don’t believe there is any formal examination. As we’ve said, these data patterns are typical of liquidity incentive programs and common in financial markets.”
Earlier on Tuesday, CoinDesk reported that a large portion of the trading volume across Kalshi’s bitcoin and ether perpetual markets consisted of identical order sizes, with numerous ether perp transactions centered around $5,500 and bitcoin perp orders hovering near $2,500 or $5,000.
Later that day, The Wall Street Journal published a report noting similar data and mentioning that the CFTC was observing trading metrics on Kalshi following almost one million transactions in an ether market executed in comparable values. According to the article, the regulatory body was analyzing the information prior to determining whether a formal enforcement inquiry should be opened.
This market behavior had previously attracted notice from Beni, co-founder of the research company Stealth Neolab, who pointed out that Kalshi’s ether perpetual generated roughly $539 million in volume over 24 hours against open interest of only $3.1 million. He later discovered that trades valued at precisely $5,500 accounted for 48% to 58% of notional volume across four separate days in September, with figures pulled from Kalshi’s public API.
Diana explained that these trends can be accounted for by Kalshi’s liquidity incentive program, which rewards users who supply liquidity to the order books.
During an interview, Diana noted, “We send our data every day to them [the CFTC], and it’s not that weird for them to sort of review our data on the regular.”
As of Tuesday, the CFTC had not responded to an inquiry seeking comment.
This close observation arrives while prediction platforms experience rapid expansion, drawing heightened interest toward how these venues report trading volumes and oversee interactions among participants. Liquidity incentive programs generally compensate market participants for placing orders, assisting in the establishment of markets where alternative users can execute buys and sells.
Kalshi emphasized that such incentives account for the trading behavior that drew attention, including surges of identically sized orders.
Addressing questions concerning safeguards against wash trading and self-trading, Diana mentioned that Kalshi utilizes “tons of tools” alongside an established “full surveillance team in place.” Wash trading involves transactions created to simulate market engagement absent any genuine shift in economic risk.
Diana also dismissed rumors spreading across social media channels regarding the exchange.
She stated, “Don’t believe everything you read on X. A lot of the discourse was rumors seeded by competitors.”
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/09/23/kalshi-says-it-is-not-being-investigated-by-the-cftc-over-trading-activity.
