- Kalshi’s crypto lead says blockchain is essential for the firm.
- The prediction market recently overtook Polymarket in trading volume.
- Permissionless margin trading is one potential feature.
On Tuesday, Kalshi’s newly hired crypto lead announced the New York-based prediction market is leaning into blockchain technology in a big way.
The prediction markets platform already lets users make deposits in Circle’s USDC stablecoin, as well as other cryptocurrencies, through a collaboration with ZeroHash. Cryptocurrencies are immediately converted to fiat.
But the remit is expanding, John Wang told an audience in Singapore.
“The next 10x unlock for us will be building new financial primitives for trading on Kalshi,” he said during Solana APEX, a Solana conference at the Marina Bay Sands convention centre.
“And crypto, as this global financial layer, is honestly essential to fulfilling that vision.”
The timing is apt.
Crypto country
US President Donald Trump and his administration have issued a slew of executive orders to better accommodate the crypto industry in the country.
Lawmakers in Washington also worked at breakneck speed to pass the Genius Act, a landmark piece of legislation that allows banks and non-banks alike to issue stablecoins.
Likewise, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has paused or halted investigations into major crypto companies, including Coinbase and Binance.
The SEC chair, Paul Atkins, unveiled “Project Crypto” in August as part of the commission’s deregulation blitz of the industry.
In response, many household fintech firms, including the stock-picking app Robinhood and payments provider Stripe, have announced plans to dive deeper into crypto.
Robinhood also partnered with Kalshi in August to launch prediction markets for US college sports.
“Any generational fintech company of this decade will be powered by crypto,” declared Wang, who joined the company in August, on stage.
Kalshi, which counts Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of President Trump, as a strategic adviser, has also profited from the changing regulatory landscape itself.
After the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission prohibited Kalshi from opening betting markets on political events in the US, Kalshi sued in 2023, claiming the regulator was overreaching.
A district court in Washington, D.C., sided with Kalshi, and the CFTC appealed. In May this year, the agency dropped its appeal.
What’s next?
As for Kalshi’s deeper push into all things blockchain, Wang has a few ideas.
When Pedro Miranda, the Solana Foundation’s head of consumer, asked Wang what he hopes to see built on Kalshi, the call to developers was ambitious.
“It can range anywhere from pushing data onchain from our API to, in the future, tokenising Kalshi positions, providing margin and leveraged trading, and building third-party front ends,” said Wang.
Liam Kelly is DL News Berlin-based DeFi Correspondent. Got a tip? Email at liam@dlnews.com.
