Kalshi’s $40 billion growth story hits tough questions about its trading volume

Kalshi is ending a trader-volume incentive program nearly a year early as scrutiny of activity in its crypto markets intensifies.The prediction-market operator told the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that its Volume Incentive Program will terminate no earlier than Oct. 13, according to a Sept. 28 filing. The program had previously been scheduled to run until Oct. 1, 2027, making the change a significant acceleration of its planned end date.The decision comes as Kalshi faces questions over trading patterns in its perpetual futures markets. The CFTC has reportedly examined activity after researchers identified repetitive trades around fixed dollar amounts, including roughly $5,500 in Ethereum perpetuals.Kalshi has said it is not under investigation and has rejected allegations of wash trading, attributing the repeated transactions to market makers placing fixed-size quotes that other traders repeatedly hit.The filing does not link the program's termination to those concerns or explain why Kalshi ended it early. Under its terms, the exchange could terminate the program at its discretion.Launched to increase activity on Kalshi's central limit order book, the program allowe...