Kalshi has begun offering perpetual futures tied to gold and silver after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) cleared the listings, marking the prediction-market operator’s first move of this product type beyond digital assets.
Trading in the new contracts opened Thursday on the company’s platform, following a filing submitted in July and regulatory review completed this week.
Perpetual futures, often called perps, are cash-settled derivatives that do not expire and do not require ownership or delivery of the underlying metal.
Instead, they track the spot price of one troy ounce of gold or silver in U.S. dollars.
A periodic funding mechanism is designed to keep each contract’s market price aligned with the reference spot rate.
Kalshi has identified Pyth Network as the price source, drawing on quotes from market makers, venues, and institutions.
The contracts trade around the clock, including weekends and holidays.
The company first received permission in late May to list crypto-linked perpetuals, bringing onshore a product category that generated an estimated $90 trillion in offshore volume in 2025.
Those crypto contracts have since recorded tens of billions of dollars in notional activity.
Officials said strong demand for commodities, visible in more than $400 million of volume in Kalshi’s metals- and oil-related event contracts over seven months, made precious metals the logical next step.
Gold and silver, they argued, are assets many participants hold for macroeconomic reasons rather than for scheduled physical delivery.Kalshi presents the products as a lower-friction alternative to existing routes.
Conventional futures require periodic rolls that can add cost.
Exchange-traded funds typically charge ongoing management fees and offer limited or no leverage.
Physical metal involves storage, transport, and liquidity frictions.
Perpetuals, the firm says, concentrate liquidity in a single contract, avoid monthly fee drag from rolls or fund expenses, and remain available when traditional exchanges are closed.
The metals listings are the first non-crypto perpetuals the CFTC has allowed on a US designated contract market.
Kalshi has also sought clearance for similar contracts linked to US equity indexes, copper, and currencies; those applications remain pending.
Traditional futures operators have expressed concern that always-on, non-expiring contracts could shift liquidity and fee economics.
CME Group has challenged the regulator’s earlier crypto-perp decision in court.
Kalshi executives counter that regulation itself is the advantage.
Clearing, surveillance, know-your-customer rules, and risk-based margin, they say, allow the product to scale in a way unregulated offshore venues have not.
For US traders, the launch means continuous, cash-settled exposure to two of the most widely followed precious metals without the calendar constraints of legacy futures.
Whether the contracts attract lasting volume will depend on liquidity, funding-rate behavior, and how participants use them for hedging versus speculation. For now, the listing expands the set of CFTC-regulated instruments available around the clock and tests whether a structure born in crypto markets can take root in traditional commodities.