CNBC finds unusual Ether futures volumes on Kalshi — CNBC
In the United States, industry observers questioned whether the reported trading volumes on prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket reflect organic market activity. As CNBC reports, both companies deny wash trading and disagree that the identified trading patterns indicate non-organic activity.
Trading on Kalshi
On September 20, an X user drew attention to an unusual trading structure in Ether perpetual futures on Kalshi: a significant share of transactions consisted of trades worth approximately $5,500. CNBC's analysis showed that nearly half of the dollar trading volume in these contracts that day came from trades ranging from $5,495 to $5,505.
Experts also noted the ratio between daily trading volume and open interest. As of the morning of September 30, trading volume in Bitcoin and Ether perpetual futures on Kalshi exceeded open interest by approximately 42 and 66 times, respectively. Kalshi spokesperson Jack Such said the company has no concerns about this ratio and attributed it, among other things, to lower leverage and US regulatory requirements.
Kalshi said it tracked hundreds of users involved in the transactions discussed on social media and has mechanisms to monitor self-trading or collusion. The company suggested that the activity could have been linked to arbitrage between cryptocurrency prices on other exchanges and market-maker quotes on its platform.
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The Wall Street Journal reported that the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is examining trades in Kalshi's Ether perpetual futures. CNBC was unable to independently confirm this information, while a regulator representative neither confirmed nor denied the existence of an investigation.
Polymarket contracts
On the international exchange Polymarket, which is not overseen by US regulators, higher trading volumes were sometimes recorded for contracts with a very low probability of an outcome. For example, in contracts on the winner of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, trading volume on Egypt's chances exceeded $158 million, although the team's probability of winning did not reach 0.5%. For Spain, this figure was $152 million.
In a contract on Ethiopia's next prime minister, trading volume on the chances of Gedion Timotheos, whose probability remained below 3% for months, approached $56 million. At the same time, around $170,000 in trading was placed on the chances of Abiy Ahmed, who won the election and stood at 98% in the contract.
Polymarket's head of revenue and analytics, Kyle Gesuelli, explained this activity as the actions of experienced traders who use algorithms to find pricing errors in contracts. According to him, such trades help correct price imbalances. Polymarket declined to comment on speculation about a possible distribution of crypto tokens among users.
