Key Takeaways:
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission cleared Kalshi to list gold and silver perpetual futures this week, the first non-crypto contracts of their kind approved for a US-regulated exchange, extending a product fight that CME Group has taken to federal court.
"Metals, especially gold and silver, have a story to tell because of inflation," Udesh Jha, chief risk officer at Kalshi Klear, the exchange's clearing house, said. "It all goes back to the regulated platform. Doing it the right way, a way with proper risk controls. Unregulated platforms, they have always hit a ceiling."
The contracts went live Thursday, roughly two months after Kalshi filed its application in July. Perpetual futures carry no expiration date and require no ownership of the underlying asset; a funding mechanism keeps the contract tethered to spot. Kalshi argues that structure undercuts rollover fees on dated futures, management fees on ETFs and the storage and transport costs of physical metal. The approval follows the CFTC's May 29 order that let Kalshi list bitcoin perps, the first domestic perpetual contract, which has since booked $44 billion in notional volume. Commodity event contracts covering metals and oil crossed $400 million in volume in seven months, half the 14 months Kalshi's crypto event contracts needed to reach the same mark.
CME sued the CFTC on June 18 over that May order, arguing the contracts qualify as swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act and Dodd-Frank, that the agency reversed a longstanding position without adequate process, and that the approval admitted new entrants to its retail futures market. Chief executive Terrence Duffy has called perpetual futures "a disaster waiting to happen." The CFTC moved to dismiss on September 3, saying CME remains free to list the same contracts, that its customers are not asking for them, and that its bitcoin and ether futures traded higher in June and August than in May — making any harm "entirely self-inflicted." Hyperliquid Policy Center filed an amicus brief on September 9, drafted by former US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing CME has no standing because the order enlarged the market rather than dividing it and added no new competitor, since Kalshi has held CFTC-regulated exchange status since 2020. CME's opposition to the dismissal motion is due October 2 before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in the District of Columbia.
Kalshi filed with the CFTC in August to list perps tied to US equity indexes, copper and currencies. Those applications remain pending. A 500-stock US index contract and a copper contract would push the product directly into the fee pools CME and CBOE Global Markets have defended for decades, a step beyond the metals launch, which sits adjacent to rather than inside their largest franchises.
The equity reaction has already priced some of that risk. Shares of CME and CBOE fell after the first perps approval, with investors treating the contracts as a threat to established futures exchange economics. The standing question now carries more weight than the merits: if the suit is dismissed, onshore perpetuals stand, Kalshi and other designated contract markets keep listing them, and the regulated route that offshore venues such as Hyperliquid are pursuing stays open. If CME prevails and the contracts are reclassified as swaps, the heavier swap regime applies, slowing the migration of perpetual volume onto US-regulated venues and leaving more of it offshore.
The scale at stake is set by the market perpetuals already command. Kalshi said perps recorded more than $90 trillion in global trading volume in 2025, a business US traders could previously reach only through unregulated offshore platforms. Kalshi's crypto perps alone have done $44 billion in notional volume since May, and the metals launch tests whether that demand travels to commodities. The last time the CFTC expanded the onshore perp perimeter, in May, CME and CBOE shares fell within days and CME filed suit within three weeks — a pattern that repeats if the October 2 filing fails to end the case.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
