Kalshi’s Bitcoin traders brace for $67,000 amid leverage shock

Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated prediction market that spent years fighting for the right to list novel contracts, has apparently decided that binary outcomes were just the warm-up act. The platform’s new Bitcoin perpetual futures contracts, which went live around June 3 after receiving CFTC approval on May 29, have already generated over $5.5 billion in trading volume in roughly their first two weeks. Now, by mid-August, traders on the platform are positioning heavily for Bitcoin to reach $67,000, which would represent a two-month high. The number itself is interesting. Bitcoin has oscillated around the $67,000 level at various points throughout 2026, making it less of a moonshot and more of a reclamation target. Leverage changes the math Kalshi’s Bitcoin perps offer approximately 5.9x to 6.1x leverage. For a platform that built its reputation on yes-or-no prediction contracts, this is a dramatic shift in product complexity. Traders can now take amplified directional bets on Bitcoin’s price without an expiration date, a structure familiar to anyone who’s used offshore crypto exchanges but novel for a US-regulated venue. The contracts feature funding rates that settle every eight hours,...