Kalshi’s ether perpetual futures market faces wash trading allegations

Kalshi is facing wash trading allegations after an analysis found that most sampled ether perpetual futures volume came from trades clustered around a repeating dollar value. The Defiant analyzed 120,000 consecutive KXETHPERP trades covering roughly 18 and a half hours from September 20 to September 21. About 47.2% fell within a narrow band around one dollar value and accounted for $307.6 million of the $490.3 million in notional volume, or 62.75%. The pattern appeared throughout the sample. Trades initially clustered just below $5,500 before shifting to about $5,425.55 after 03:00 UTC on September 21. The median interval between clustered trades was 0.365 seconds, with activity holding near 96 trades per minute for more than two hours. The size also appeared fixed in dollar terms rather than ETH quantity. Ether moved more than 5% during the period, while the amount of ETH per clustered trade adjusted inversely to keep the dollar value relatively stable. Similar patterns appeared in other Kalshi perpetual markets. About 29% of sampled bitcoin perp trades clustered near $2,500, while 24.6% of NEAR trades clustered near $500. Ether showed the highest concentration. The findings follo...