Bitcoin, ether perpetual volumes on Kalshi are dominated by an unusual, repetitive trade, data shows

CoinDesk analysis of Kalshi’s public trade records found that a single recurring trade size near $5,499 accounted for $7.7 million, or 57%, of the ether perpetual-futures volume sampled from Sept. 17–20. On Kalshi’s bitcoin perpetual market, repeated $2,500 and $5,000 trade sizes made up about 54% of the sampled $8.5 million in transactions over the same period.

By AI Newsroom· Reviewed by Pranav, Founder & Editor-in-ChiefPublished about 1 hour agoUpdated about 1 hour ago0 views

Bitcoin, ether perpetual volumes on Kalshi are dominated by an unusual, repetitive trade, data shows

Why It Matters

Volume is a common gauge of market activity and liquidity; when a large share of reported trading comes from a few recurring fixed-dollar trades, it can distort how representative that volume is of broad market participation. Identifying whether those patterns stem from automated strategies, a handful of participants, or other causes matters for assessing the exchange’s market dynamics and reported turnover.

Key Facts

Source: CoinDesk analysis of Kalshi public trade records
Ether sample period: Sept. 17–20 (data sampled)
Ether recurring trade value: $5,499 target; $7.7 million (57%) of $13.5 million sampled value
Number of ether trades analyzed: 3,450 trades across 23 one-hour samples
Ether trades within $2 of $5,499: 1,406 trades in the sampled period (Sept. 17–20)

A CoinDesk review of Kalshi’s public API trade data shows that a small set of fixed-dollar trade sizes dominated reported activity on the exchange’s ether and bitcoin perpetual-futures markets. For ether, trades clustered tightly around a roughly $5,499 dollar target and made up $7.7 million, or 57%, of the $13.5 million in transactions CoinDesk sampled from Sept. 17 through Sept. 20. Bitcoin’s perpetual market displayed a similar pattern: two recurring trade sizes near $2,500 and $5,000 combined to represent about 54% of the $8.5 million sampled over the same window.

The repetitive trade sizes persisted beyond that four-day snapshot. Between June 19 and Sept. 20, CoinDesk found the pattern in 43 of 46 one-hour samples, with the prevailing ether trade size contributing about 45% of value on average across those samples and exceeding half the value on 15 occasions. The number of contracts executed in each trade changed as asset prices moved, while the dollar amounts stayed largely constant — a behavior consistent with automated programs that aim to execute set-dollar buys or sells (often called “clips”).

Kalshi’s contract design and trading figures accentuate the concentration. The exchange’s small ether contract traded near $2.70 apiece on the Monday of CoinDesk’s snapshot. CoinDesk’s one snapshot showed roughly 93 million contracts of 24-hour volume against about 1.5 million contracts of open interest for the ether perpetual, yielding a volume-to-open-interest ratio of about 61 — notably higher than the median ratio of about eight across Kalshi’s perpetuals. The bitcoin perpetual’s volume-to-open-interest ratio was about 26. High turnover does not by itself indicate wrongdoing, but it highlights unusually heavy trading relative to outstanding positions.

CoinDesk asked Kalshi whether the repeating trade sizes were produced by a single participant or multiple accounts, whether they were tied to market-making or incentive arrangements, and whether the exchange had detected self-matching or common ownership among the trading accounts. Kalshi had not provided a response by the time of publication. The observed clustering of dollar targets has shifted over time — CoinDesk’s earlier samples showed clusters around $4,999, $3,999, $4,499 and other values — suggesting the target amounts have changed as the market and participants’ strategies evolved.