Kalshi asks the CFTC to approve a WTI futures contract that expires once a decade

A holder of an ordinary oil future who wants to keep the position has to roll into another month as expiry approaches ^[13]. Someone rolling monthly for a decade would do that 120 times ^[14]. Kalshi's version keeps one position open for 10 years and uses a funding strategy to hold its price to the WTI market, according to Cryptopolitan ^[1][4]. The reporting does not describe how that funding rate is set or which WTI price it tracks. I'd expect the cost of carrying crude for a decade to reappear in those payments. Until the rate is known, the promised cut in rollover costs ^[2] is a design goal.

Two other parts of the pitch are easier to check. Holders would no longer risk rolling by mistake into physical delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma, a problem for a trader who never intended to take a barrel ^[5]. Kalshi also argues that one long contract would keep trading in one place instead of spreading it across a string of expirations ^[6]. That argument needs volume before there is anything to concentrate. Demand for crude exposure is high: Cryptopolitan describes the Iran war as having made crude one of the year's most aggressively traded macro assets ^[17], and WTI futures have moved through roughly a $60-a-barrel range since January ^[16].

Perpetual-style contracts draw closer scrutiny, so Kalshi cannot self-certify this one and the agency must review it on its merits ^[8]. The nearest precedent is CME's own attempt at round-the-clock oil trading. It drew stiff opposition from the oil sector and regulators, was initially blocked by the CFTC, went through months of debate and was shelved ^[9]. The objection was that physical oil is priced off benchmarks, and it was not clear that non-stop trading could stay grounded in them ^[10]. Kalshi's contract trades 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday, and stops for the weekend ^[7]. So it steers clear of the hours that sank CME's plan while bringing to oil the perpetual-style structure the CFTC has already allowed Kalshi to offer on crypto. CME sued the agency over that decision earlier this year ^[11].

When the 45-day window ^[3] closes, the agency could approve; it could block the contract as it first blocked CME; or the filing could open the kind of months-long debate CME's plan went through ^[9]. I think the weekday-only schedule gives Kalshi a better chance than CME had, because it answers the objection that was actually raised against round-the-clock trading. The counter-case is that a decade-long contract on a delivered benchmark is a bigger question than weekend hours, and the agency is already defending the perpetual concept against CME in court ^[11]. Kalshi also has a separate fight open. Ohio, 38 other states and Washington, D.C. have asked the Supreme Court to take up a challenge to its sports event contracts ^[12].

An approval would show that the CFTC will let a prediction-market venue list a new structure on crude, though not that oil hedgers will leave the dated months. The case that this threatens CME's roll-based business is wrong if, a year after any approval, the contract holds a small fraction of the open interest in the monthly contracts it was built to replace. CME, for its part, has shelved its 24/7 plan and taken the CFTC to court ^[9][11].