Crypto wallet Phantom has enabled Kalshi-powered event contracts for customers in the United States, handing the prediction market platform another distribution channel. The rollout arrives at a delicate moment: CME Group is fighting Kalshi in federal court, before the Securities and Exchange Commission, and now in the oil market itself.

The divergence between the two firms is widening. CME's consumer prediction-market venture with FanDuel has shrunk, while Kalshi and rival Polymarket have expanded where they can trade. Event contracts have become a contested frontier among the platforms offering them, the regulators overseeing them, and established firms in adjacent sectors. In the latest clash, CME — one of the oldest and largest derivatives marketplaces in the US — argues that Kalshi is breaking rules as it continues to expand.

Phantom opens another door for Kalshi

Phantom users can now buy and sell Kalshi event contracts inside the app, with access to more of the platform's offerings expected in the coming weeks. Event contracts are binary instruments: they pay a set amount when a stated outcome occurs and nothing when it does not. Trades are currently funded with CASH, Phantom's dollar-pegged stablecoin. Funds are routed to Kalshi for settlement, and winnings return to the user's Phantom Cash account. Phantom quoted a fee of two cents per contract plus a small network charge.

The new channel does not remove Kalshi's headaches with state regulators the US. Several states challenge the platform's position that federal oversight as a CFTC-regulated exchange shields its contracts from state gambling laws. In its announcement, released Thursday, October 22, Phantom said certain market categories will not be accessible to users in Michigan, Nevada and Washington — a restriction tied to the various lawsuits Kalshi faces in those states.

Phantom itself holds regulatory relief: it received a conditional no-action letter from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in March, sparing it from registering as a broker. That relief has since been widened to other software providers.

Kalshi's volumes keep climbing. The platform has logged more than $291 billion in volume this year and has already reached $55.33 billion in October with nine days to run, putting it on track to top September's record of $59.32 billion, according to The Block data.

CME's fight widens into oil

On October 20, Kalshi asked the CFTC to approve WTIPERP, a cash-settled West Texas Intermediate crude contract that never expires. If cleared, it would be the first energy “perp” available in the US. The perpetual format was popularized in crypto derivatives trading, and Kalshi's filing would take it beyond digital assets and into US commodity markets.

The contract would track a constant one-month WTI price calculated by Pyth Network, a blockchain-based market data provider, and would represent 100 barrels, versus the 1,000 barrels underlying a standard contract on NYMEX, the exchange owned by CME. Kalshi is pursuing voluntary approval, which gives the CFTC between 45 and 90 days to decide.

The platform already runs a related product, WTIFUTURE, which it self-certified on October 7. That contract behaves like a perpetual but carries a ten-year maturity. It was doing $57 million in daily volume with up to 5.9 times leverage.

The lawsuit where CME is losing ground

CME sued the CFTC on June 18 over the regulator's May 29 approval of Kalshi's Bitcoin perpetual, BTCPERP, as Cryptopolitan reported. CME's argument is that contracts with no expiry are swaps under Dodd-Frank, not futures — a label that changes margin, registration and tax treatment.

The agency wants the case gone. On October 16, the CFTC asked Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to dismiss the suit, saying CME had not shown it was harmed. The regulator pointed to CME's own figures, with monthly crypto futures volume climbing from roughly 2.66 million contracts in May to 3.28 million in September, and to Chairman Terrence Duffy's statement that clients were not asking for perps. The agency argued that CME lacks standing.

The pressure is not limited to commodities. On October 14, CME, Nasdaq and Cboe lodged objections with the SEC over Kalshi's separate plan for perpetual security futures tied to individual stocks. Kalshi, meanwhile, launched a US500 perpetual on October 6.

CME's own prediction bet has shrunk

While Kalshi adds venues, CME's consumer play has pulled back. FanDuel Predicts, the app CME launched with FanDuel in December 2025, has since been rewired so that sports wagers run through Crypto.com's Nadex rather than CME. CME, which holds a 51% stake in the joint venture, now processes only the non-sports contracts, which it said account for under 1% of the app's activity.

CME's prediction-market volume during the first two weeks of July was estimated at about 0.02% of all volume from US regulated entities.

The contrast with CME's core business is sharp. The exchange posted record third-quarter revenue of $1.74 billion, up 13% from a year earlier. The futures giant is thriving; its bet on prediction markets is not. The next markers are procedural: the CFTC's 45-to-90-day window on the oil contract, and the court's response to the regulator's request to dismiss the case.