Polymarket launches perpetual futures tied to oil, competing with Kalshi

Polymarket, the platform best known for letting people bet on everything from presidential elections to weather patterns, just made a sharp left turn into traditional finance territory. Its new Perps platform, which went live on September 3, offers perpetual futures contracts on assets ranging from Bitcoin to crude oil to SpaceX shares.

The move puts Polymarket in direct competition with Kalshi, which is preparing its own regulated filing for a US perpetual WTI crude oil contract. Two very different platforms, two very different regulatory playbooks, both chasing the same prize: a derivatives market that never sleeps.

What Polymarket Perps actually offers

The initial lineup covers nine markets: BTC, ETH, SOL, gold, silver, WTI crude oil, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, and SpaceX shares (trading under the ticker SPCX). International users can trade with up to 20x leverage.

Perpetual futures work differently from traditional futures contracts. There’s no expiration date, no rollover hassle. Instead, positions stay open indefinitely, funded through periodic payments that keep the contract price anchored to the underlying asset.

Polymarket is pitching the platform on two selling points: the deepest liquidity and the lowest fees available.

One major caveat: US users are locked out entirely. Polymarket’s 2022 settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission still casts a long shadow, barring the platform from serving American traders.

The Kalshi angle

Kalshi is approaching the same market from the opposite direction. Rather than launching offshore and excluding Americans, Kalshi plans to file with the CFTC for a regulated US perpetual WTI crude oil contract. If approved, it would reportedly trade 24 hours a day, five days a week, and could become the first oil perps contract on a regulated US exchange.

Why prediction markets want to be exchanges

Polymarket’s pivot from event-based contracts to continuous price-tracking derivatives is more than a product expansion. Event markets are inherently episodic. An election happens, bets resolve, and the market disappears. Perpetual futures, by contrast, generate trading activity and fees around the clock, indefinitely.

Platforms like Hyperliquid have already reported significant trading volumes in crude oil perpetuals, demonstrating that demand for these products exists and is growing.

Polymarket’s inclusion of SpaceX shares is particularly notable. SpaceX remains a private company, meaning most retail investors have no straightforward way to get exposure to its valuation. A perpetual futures contract tied to SpaceX effectively creates a synthetic public market for a company that has deliberately stayed private.

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