Kalshi Asks CFTC to Approve Never-Expiring Oil Futures Contract With 10-Year Horizon
Key Takeaways
- •Kalshi has asked the CFTC to approve an oil futures contract tied to WTI crude that would expire only once every decade while trading 24 hours a day, five days a week.
- •Under the regulatory process, the CFTC has 45 days to approve or disallow the proposed product.
- •The contract adapts perpetual futures from crypto markets, using a funding mechanism and a long-dated expiry that Kalshi argues would reduce rollover costs, eliminate unintended physical delivery risk, and concentrate liquidity in a single instrument.
- •The filing follows CME Group's decision to shelve its planned around-the-clock oil contract after industry pushback, and the two exchanges have previously clashed when CME sued the CFTC over allowing Kalshi to offer crypto-linked perpetual futures.
- •Kalshi's commodities markets generated nearly $400 million in trading volume by early September, almost four times its crypto markets at the same stage, as WTI futures traded across a roughly $60-per-barrel range during the Iran war.
Kalshi has filed a proposal with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for an oil futures contract that would expire only once every 10 years, extending the platform's push into derivatives tied to real-world assets.
The contract would track West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude and trade 24 hours a day, five days a week, according to Bloomberg. Under the regulatory process, the CFTC has 45 days to approve or disallow the product, making the regulator's decision the next milestone for the decade-long contract.
The proposed structure perpetual futures — known as perps — which originated in cryptocurrency markets and typically carry no expiration date, relying on funding payments to help keep prices aligned with an underlying benchmark. Kalshi's version would retain an expiry, but stretched to once a decade.
In its filing, Kalshi argued that a single contract with a funding mechanism would better serve traders whose oil exposure is continuous or indefinite. The company said the structure would reduce the costs and pricing risks associated with repeatedly replacing expiring contracts, remove the risk of an unintended physical delivery obligation, and concentrate liquidity in one instrument rather than spreading it across multiple expiration dates.
The proposal follows CME Group's decision Friday to shelve plans for an oil contract that would have traded around the clock, including weekends, after industry pushback. CME's plan had initially been blocked by the CFTC, prompting a review of whether weekend trading could work alongside the physical oil market — a market that relies on dependable benchmark prices to value and sell cargoes. Kalshi's proposed weekday trading schedule aims to address the concerns raised by the trading community, per Bloomberg.
Unlike CME's withdrawn product, which retained traditional expiration cycles, Kalshi's contract would remain open for a decade. The two exchanges have also clashed over perpetual futures more broadly: CME sued the CFTC earlier this year over its decision to allow Kalshi to offer crypto-linked versions of the derivatives.
The oil proposal comes as geopolitical tensions drive demand for commodity trading. WTI futures have traded across a roughly $60 per barrel range this year amid the Iran war, according to Bloomberg.
Kalshi said its commodities markets had generated nearly $400 million in trading volume by early September, almost four times the volume its crypto markets recorded at the same stage of development.
