Kalshi Stock Perps Draw $300M in First Hours of U.S. Trading

The speed of the $300 million intake signals genuine demand for leveraged equity exposure inside a regulated U.S. venue, rather than the offshore perp desks that have absorbed this activity until now. The dual CFTC–SEC oversight is the real story: it gives equity perps a compliance footing that crypto-native platforms have never had, and it lands days after the CFTC chairman opened the door onshore. That puts pressure on both offshore venues and traditional listed derivatives to justify their structures. Whether this volume holds beyond the debut window, and how the two agencies divide supervision in practice, are the open questions.