Kalshi lists gold and silver perpetuals on the CFTC's first non-crypto clearance

The offshore perpetual-futures market the CFTC has now twice allowed onshore did an estimated $90 trillion of volume in 2025 ^[8], which works out to roughly $247 billion a day ^[20]. Kalshi's crypto perps, cleared in late May, have recorded tens of billions of dollars of notional since ^[9]. Take $90 billion as the generous reading of that phrase and it is under nine hours of the offshore run rate ^[21].

Set the metals case against Kalshi's own books. Officials said more than $400 million of volume in metals- and oil-related event contracts over seven months made precious metals the logical next step ^[10], an average of about $57 million a month ^[22]. Even at the low end of tens of billions, the crypto perps have traded at least fifty times the seven-month event-contract figure ^[23].

The metals contracts sell the removal of recurring cost. Kalshi says conventional futures need periodic rolls that add cost, exchange-traded funds charge ongoing management fees and offer limited or no leverage, and physical metal involves storage, transport and liquidity frictions ^[12]. In their place sits a periodic funding payment designed to hold the contract at the spot reference for one troy ounce in dollars ^[5][4]. Kalshi has not published a funding rate for the new contracts ^[24]. Until one exists, a fund holder paying a management fee cannot tell which route is cheaper ^[12].

These are the first non-crypto perpetuals the CFTC has allowed on a US designated contract market ^[14]. CME Group has challenged the regulator's earlier crypto-perp decision in court ^[17], and traditional futures operators have said always-on, non-expiring contracts could shift liquidity and fee economics ^[16]. Kalshi executives counter that regulation itself is the advantage, and that clearing, surveillance, know-your-customer rules and risk-based margin let the product scale in a way unregulated offshore venues have not ^[18].

I think these will trade first as a weekend instrument, because availability around the clock and through holidays is the one feature the legacy contracts cannot copy ^[7], and because Kalshi's own argument is that gold and silver holders are positioned for macroeconomic reasons and are not waiting on delivery ^[11]. The more interesting version of the counter-case: if funding runs consistently against longs, the contracts are a leveraged speculation venue and the fund money never moves. Kalshi's framing puts the test on liquidity, funding-rate behaviour and whether participants hedge or speculate ^[19]. Open interest that survives several weekends would settle it.