Kalshi is disputing allegations that trading activity in its crypto perpetual futures market was inflated by selected market makers, or self-clearing members, after an analyst published data pointing to repeated order sizes in the exchange’s ether contract.
Beni, a co-founder of research firm Stealth Neolab who posts on X, wrote in a Sept. 20 thread that Kalshi’s ether perpetual recorded about $539 million in 24-hour volume against roughly $3.1 million in open interest, a turnover ratio of about 174 times. Open interest reflects the value of positions still being held, while volume tracks contracts that changed hands. A gap that large is commonly treated as a warning sign for wash trading.
In a follow-up post, Beni said trades of exactly $5,500 made up 48% to 58% of all ether perp notional volume on four days between Sept. 16 and Sept. 20. He also said the largest position shown on Kalshi’s public leaderboard read $17,598 when he captured it.
According to Beni, anyone can retrieve the same figures through Kalshi’s public API. He alleged that market makers chosen by Kalshi were behind the suspected wash trading and pointed to a Commodity Futures Trading Commission filing that extended a program under which eligible makers receive 0.3 basis points and takers pay 0.3 basis points, leaving the net at zero. The filing excludes suspected wash trades, self-matching and pre-arranged trades from rewards.
He also cited a Bloomberg report from February saying that Jump Trading would take a fixed equity stake in Kalshi in exchange for providing liquidity.
Kalshi launched crypto perps on June 3 after the CFTC approved its BTCPERP contract on May 29. The company’s crypto perpetual products cleared $5.5 billion in volume during their first two weeks, according to the report.
Kalshi rejects the accusation
IcoBeast.eth, who works on Kalshi’s crypto products, rejected the allegations in a public reply. He said the Artemis chart that triggered the dispute measured prediction-market share, not perpetuals volume.
He also said Kalshi counts volume the way Polymarket does, using the maximum payout of contracts traded rather than the cash spent, because each contract settles at $1.
On market-maker access, IcoBeast.eth said any firm that meets CFTC requirements can become a self-clearing member and that fair access is a regulatory obligation. He added that Kalshi does not run a rebate program on crypto prediction contracts.
He argued that rebates are standard at CME Group, Hyperliquid and Binance, while Kalshi’s arrangements must be filed publicly and other exchanges can run similar deals without the same level of disclosure.