DoubleZero co-founder responds: Is Kalshi's data acceleration bad for retail investors

DoubleZero co-founder Austin Federa defended Kalshi's high-speed public access to election market data, confirming that the infrastructure only supports reading and cannot submit or execute transactions

DoubleZero Edge is responsible for distributing Kalshi's order book data, but is not responsible for routing or executing orders. According to co-founder Austin Federa, any participant can subscribe to the same data stream.

This service uses dedicated optical fiber and multicast technology to replace the public Internet transmission method used by Kalshi API and WebSocket. DoubleZero will release transmission benchmark data, but leave the market quality report to Kalshi.

Austin Federa told crypto.news that professional traders tend to compete with each other for speed, and more intense competition among market makers can lead to narrower spreads and better prices for other participants. Federa's comments were in response to concerns that professional institutions with faster access to information may have an advantage over individual investors who still access Kalxi through slower public Internet connections.

"The answer to our imbalance problem is open access: the fastest data paths should not be private tracks, nor should they be at out-of-reach price levels. By putting Kalshi election market data on the DoubleZero track, anyone can subscribe to the same stream from anywhere,"Federa said.

DoubleZero announced on September 9 that Kalshi's electoral and political marketplaces have been made available through DoubleZero Edge ahead of the U.S. election season. The service distributes Kalshi's complete election order book data, including purchase orders, sell orders and completed transactions, over a dedicated optical fiber network.

Although subscribers receive data faster than users who rely on ordinary Internet routing, Federa emphasizes that access is not limited to a specific group of trading companies.

While professional market makers may use this information to update quotes more quickly, Federa believes that competition between such companies can benefit other users through narrower spreads and improved prices. As of now, DoubleZero has not released data showing whether Kalshi's integration has changed the above indicators.

Access still requires a paid subscription. According to Federa, customers can purchase data streams through the DoubleZero website without going through the traditional sales process. Subscriptions are associated with the encrypted identity and IP address of the machine receiving the data.

Once subscribed, customers can install the connector with just one command. Federa said the software will configure the receiving machine, create a private tunnel into the DoubleZero network, and start running connections. Status commands allow subscribers to check whether the tunnel is active and which data channels the machine has joined. The connector then converts the broadcast to JSON format and provides services locally, allowing the trading system to read real-time tools, quotes and order book updates.

Kalshi faces an uneven legal environment across the United States

Although its federally regulated market is expanding, Kalshi faces an uneven legal environment across the United States. As crypto.news reported on September 8, conflicting state court rulings could cause access and liquidity to forecast markets to split among states.

Aaron Courtney, chief compliance officer for ProphetX, said in a previous report that conflicting sentences could result in users in certain states having access to federally regulated platforms, while users in other regions being restricted. At the heart of the controversy is whether federal regulation of the Designated Contract Market (DCM) prevents states from applying their own gambling laws.

Kalshi orders cannot be executed through DoubleZero Edge

Although traders can enter DoubleZero's data into their own systems, Federa emphasized that the product does not provide order entry capabilities. "DoubleZero Edge is a read-only market data distribution platform for accessing traders 'technology stacks. DoubleZero Edge does not have any execution functions."

Participants cannot use infrastructure to submit, route, or complete transactions. Orders must still go through Kalshi's trading system, which allows DoubleZero to operate only as a transport layer between source data and subscribers.

Federa compared this setting with two established methods of receiving exchange information. In public mode, companies connect to Kalshi's API or WebSocket via the open Internet, request updates, and assemble their own orderbook views. Each company maintains its own connections, receives its own copies of data, and manages the systems needed to transform individual responses into a usable view of the market. As information is transmitted over the public Internet, network routes and delivery times may vary.

Traditional exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) use another model. According to Federa, they publish data once and broadcast it to subscribers over private optical fibers through a process called multicast.

He said Kalshi's data flow applies the second model to forecast the market. Data leaves Kalshi through the direct interface it provides for institutional participants, travels through DoubleZero's dedicated fiber optic network, and reaches subscribers via one-off broadcasts. Each subscriber aims to receive the same sequence of messages simultaneously, reducing the amount of work required for each company to collect and deconstruct order books.

Dedicated optical fiber changes the way Kalshi data reaches traders

Federa said that DoubleZero receives information through the fastest direct interface Kalshi provides to institutional users. From there, Edge uses dedicated fiber and multicast, while Kalshi's existing public APIs and WebSockets still rely on public Internet routes.

DoubleZero has not yet provided data showing the exact latency differences between services. According to Federa, the company will release benchmark data when results from the company's initial product testing phase are available.

Subscribers can choose between top-level book data (including the best available buy and sell orders) or full-depth data for all price levels. Prior to adding elections and political contracts, DoubleZero already provided a separate data stream for Kalki's sports market and cryptocurrency perpetual contracts.

Kalxi continues to add products to both the forecasting market and regulated U.S. derivatives trading. On September 4, the exchange added five cryptocurrency perpetual contracts linked to BNB, Cardano, Worldcoin, Aave and Venice Token. As previously reported, this has increased its lineup to Bitcoin and 17 altcoins perpetual contracts. Kalshi operates as a designated contract market regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and its dollar-denominated margin-denominated perpetual contracts allow U.S. traders to gain long or short price exposure without holding the base token.

Kalxi's event contracts and cryptocurrency derivatives remain subject to separate regulatory and legal issues. CME Group challenged the CFTC's handling of Kalxi Bitcoin perpetual contracts, arguing that the product should fall under swap rules rather than traditional futures rules.

DoubleZero will measure transmission efficiency rather than Kalxi's market performance

To evaluate Edge, DoubleZero will track the speed at which updates move from their source to subscribers, the consistency with which users receive the same serial order book, and the freshness of delivery information compared to public Internet feeds.

Federa distinguishes these transmission indicators from spreads, orderbook depth, and price behavior during major political events. He said Kalxi controls the trading venue, while DoubleZero only provides data.

Federa said faster, clearer information may help market makers adjust quotes faster, but he said DoubleZero will not use Kalyi's spread or depth data as a performance measure for Edge. "We will release data on the transport layer," Federa said."We will not release venue market quality scorecard from DoubleZero."

Market integrity has received more attention as Kalixi expands contracts tied to politics and other real-world events. On August 31, the exchange banned George Santos after its compliance department discovered that he had traded contracts about whether he would attend President Donald Trump's 2026 State of the Union speech. Kalxi said Santos traded bilateral in the Attendance market while controlling information about its plans, earning a profit of $17,839.57. The exchange fined him $71,356 and permanently banned him from trading on the platform, while a separate CFTC settlement order required him to refund $17,569.98, pay a civil penalty of $17,500, and stop trading at CFTC registered venues for three years.

According to the same report, Kalxi said it conducted more than 150 investigations in the first quarter of 2026, stopped more than 100 suspected insider trading attempts, and referred 20 cases to law enforcement.