Kalshi says one market maker drove recurring crypto perps as CFTC probe reported
By Crypto Wire
September 22, 2026
Kalshi told reporters a single incentivized market maker drove the repeating dollar-sized quotes that dominated sampled bitcoin and ether perpetual volume, as The Wall Street Journal separately reported that the CFTC is examining wash-trading allegations on the platform. FinanceFeeds’ review of public trade records from September 17–20 found ether prints within $2 of $5,499 accounted for about $7.7 million, or 57%, of $13.5 million sampled ETH perp value, while recurring bitcoin sizes near $2,500 and $5,000 made up 54% of $8.5 million sampled BTC value.
Kalshi’s explanation is market-making, not self-matching. The exchange said the firm posts fixed-size orders under an incentive program that pays a flat monthly amount for maintaining bids and offers inside specified size and price bands, and that hundreds of distinct faster traders took the other side—often profitably—while the maker repeatedly traded at a disadvantage as prices moved. Kalshi said its systems prevent participants from matching against themselves, that it monitors for coordinated trading, and that it found no evidence of collusion or wash trading in the recurring prints.
Public feeds cannot independently prove those account-level claims because identities are not on the tape. What the tape can show is persistence: across 46 one-hour ether samples from June 19 to September 20, recurring dollar-sized trades appeared in 43 hours, with the dominant size about 45% of total sample value. Dollar targets shifted over time—near $4,999, then clusters around $9,999, $3,999, $4,499, and later $5,499—while contract counts adjusted as ETH moved roughly from $1,700 to $2,500, consistent with algorithms targeting fixed notionals.
Open interest undercuts a simple “deep liquidity” reading of headline turnover. FinanceFeeds cited a recent ether perpetual snapshot of about 93 million contracts of 24-hour volume against 1.5 million contracts of open interest—a volume-to-open-interest ratio near 61, second-highest among 20 Kalshi perps compared, versus about 26 for bitcoin and a median near eight. High turnover can mean rapid recycling of exposure rather than many lasting positions.
BlockBeats, citing the Journal, said a person familiar with the matter described a CFTC wash-trading inquiry into nearly one million similarly sized Ethereum futures trades since August that drew regulator and trader attention. Co-founder Luana Lopes Lara told the Journal that attracting large traders into new markets is a normal exchange growth step and that Kalshi denies fake trading—framing the recurring quotes as market-maker posts seized by faster counterparties.
The same week brought separate CFTC staff heat on prediction-market design. In Release 9302-26 dated September 22, 2026, the Division of Market Oversight flagged “mention” event contracts—bets on whether a named person will say words, attend an event, or interact with someone—as carrying heightened manipulation risk because settlement turns on discrete personal conduct that may be hard to verify independently. The advisory is staff guidance for designated contract markets, not a ban, and lands after prior Kalshi-linked enforcement cases involving mention trading.
For Marketplace Watch, the usable desk read is volume quality under regulatory glare. Kalshi’s May-approved BTCPERP made it the first U.S. DCM with a crypto perpetual futures product; concentrated fixed-dollar maker flow plus a reported wash-trading probe and a mention-market advisory all hit the same venue family in one news cycle. Readers should separate three claims: (1) public size concentration is measurable, (2) Kalshi’s single-maker incentive explanation is the company’s account, and (3) a Journal-reported CFTC inquiry is not a finding of liability.
NFT and crypto desks that treat prediction-market tape as a sentiment oracle should discount Kalshi crypto perp volume the same way they discount incentive-farmed DEX volume: ask who is posting the size, who is taking it, and what open interest remains after the churn. The September 17–20 sample math—57% ETH and 54% BTC in recurring sizes—is the concrete figure to cite, not a vibes claim that “all volume is fake.”
Bottom line: sampled Kalshi ETH/BTC perp tapes show one recurring size stack dominating more than half of examined value; Kalshi attributes that to one incentivized market maker facing hundreds of takers; WSJ reporting says the CFTC is looking at wash-trading allegations while Kalshi denies fake trades; and CFTC staff separately tightened mention-market listing expectations. Until primary enforcement documents name outcomes, treat concentration and inquiry as confirmed journalism—not as a proven wash.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or trading advice. The NFT market is highly volatile, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions related to digital assets. The cover image for this article may have been created using artificial intelligence (AI).
