US prediction market Kalshi is asking the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for approval to launch a perpetual contract tracking WTI crude futures, which if authorized would become the first energy "perp" available in the US.
The proposed contract, WTIPERP, would track the front month price of the Nymex WTI contact and never expire. In a filing on Tuesday to the CFTC, Kalshi said authorizing the contract would give traders continuous exposure to crude prices, without the cost of rolling over contracts or the hazard of having to take delivery of crude in Cushing, Oklahoma, as WTI futures on Nymex require on expiry. The listing will also allow perpetual energy trading to occur under the oversight of the US, Kalshi said, rather than on decentralized overseas platforms such as Hyperliquid.
"This activity exists and occurs today outside the commission's supervision," Kalshi said in its filing.
Perpetuals track the price of an asset, such as cryptocurrency, by requiring traders to make periodic payments to each other depending on the price of the underlying asset. The CFTC approved its first perpetual this year for Bitcoin, but it has yet to authorize a perpetual in energy markets, which it said could raise novel issues.
Kalshi launched a similar oil contract named WTIFUTURE earlier this month, which trades like a perpetual but the company said was "not a perpetual" because it expires after a decade. Kalshi self-certified on 7 October that the contract complies with CFTC rules, clearing the way for a quick launch. That contract already has $57mn in daily volume and allows up to 5.9 times leverage on a trade, according to Kalshi's website.
But Kalshi is pursuing a voluntary approval for its perpetual crude contract, under which CFTC will have at least 45 days — and up to 90 days — to decide whether to authorize the contract. For both WTIPERP and WTIFUTURE, Kalshi has limited trading to the same hours that are allowed for the Nymex WTI contract, which trades 23 hours a day on weekdays and after 6pm ET on Sunday.
Kalshi did not respond to a request for comment.
Perpetual contracts have faced pushback from incumbent exchanges. Earlier this year, US exchange operator CME, which owns Nymex, sued to throw out the CFTC's decision to allow Kalshi to list the first-ever perpetual contract in the US. The CFTC on 16 October asked a federal judge to throw out the lawsuit because it said CME failed to show it was harmed by the authorization of the contract.
"CME does not allege that it has suffered any concrete financial injury because of perpetual futures," the CFTC said. "To the contrary, CME's public data shows that trading volumes in its digital asset futures are substantially higher today than before the commission approved perpetual futures."
Earlier this month, CME suspended plans to list a 24/7 crude futures contract after facing pushback from the oil sector and the CFTC.
