Kalshi has moved to end its Volume Incentive Program, which paid traders according to their share of eligible volume, from 13 October at the earliest. It made the change in a filing with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Monday.
The programme launched in March 2023 and had been due to run until 1 October 2027. Its stated purpose was to deepen liquidity and so sharpen pricing.
The timing is awkward. Kalshi’s September volume had reached $52.98 billion by the 29th, a record and well above August’s $38.67 billion, The Block reported.
Some of that volume is under scrutiny. The Wall Street Journal reported that the CFTC was examining repeated trades of about $5,500 that accounted for more than $5 billion a month on Kalshi’s ether perpetual futures. An X account called Beni had pointed separately to $539 million in 24-hour volume on that pair against $3.1 million in open interest.
Kalshi says it is not under investigation and that wash trading does not occur on its platform. The repeated sizes, it argues, come from market makers posting fixed quotes that faster traders keep hitting.
That may well be right. It does not quite explain why a rewards scheme with a year left to run is closing now.
The missing number is how much of September’s record came from incentivised volume. Reuters has reported that Kalshi is seeking $1 billion at about a $40 billion valuation, and anyone pricing that round would want to know what the market looks like once the payments stop.
