Kalshi gold trading overtakes Ethereum just weeks after launch

Kalshi 15分钟黄金市场交易量超越以太坊合约

Kalshi 推出的 15 分钟黄金市场在上线仅数周后，其交易量便超越了可比的以太坊（Ether）合约。数据显示，9 月份黄金相关市场的合约成交量达到 5.42 亿份，而以太坊关联市场为 3.18 亿份。

黄金与以太坊的交易数据对比

9 月份，Kalshi 的黄金 15 分钟市场记录了 5.42 亿份合约，超过了以太坊的 3.18 亿份总量。据 Predict Charts 估算，9 月份黄金产生的费用约为 500 万美元，而以太坊合约的费用为 260 万美元。

比特币仍是 Kalshi 最受欢迎的 15 分钟市场类别。据统计，比特币市场在 9 月份产生的总费用估计高达 6,040 万美元。根据 InGame 周二公布的数据，截至 10 月 5 日的七天内，15 分钟市场共产生了 2,040 万美元的费用。

Kalshi 表示，其商品类资产在七个月内实现了 4 亿美元的交易量，增速超过了加密货币早期的增长水平。需要注意的是，上述数字是基于 Kalshi 交易记录得出的估算值，不应视为公司官方报告的营收数据。

快速崛起背后的机制

The rapid growth occurred after Kalshi launched its 15-minute gold series in August. In these markets, traders need to determine whether the price of gold is above or below the reference level at the end of each 15-minute window. Each market is open for a short time window and is settled based on a predetermined reference price. For the gold market, Kalshi uses Pyth pricing data to determine the final result.

Pyth was selected as the pricing source for Kalshi's commodity products earlier this year, covering asset markets such as gold, silver, oil and agricultural products. In contrast, Ethereum has a longer first-mover advantage. Kalshi's short-term crypto contracts have expanded since the end of 2025, and ETH trading volume has increased significantly in 2026. As early as March 2026, the five-to-fifteen minute crypto forecasting market has become an important part of the forecasting platform.

Despite gold's recent strong performance, there is still a large gap compared with Bitcoin. Data from Predict Charts shows that Bitcoin fees in September were US$60.4 million, almost more than double gold revenue and far exceeding the amount of gold.

Short-term trading brings higher fee income

The surge in gold data reflects a significant increase in overall trading activity around the 15-minute settlement market. InGame reported that in the seven days ending October 5, a 15-minute tour of encryption, commodity and financial markets generated $20.4 million in fees. During the same period, Kalshi collected approximately $25.1 million in fees from all non-sports markets, with short-term products accounting for nearly 80% of total revenue.

Although short-term products account for a relatively low proportion of trading volume-InGame calculations show that the market accounted for 13% of Kalshi's total trading volume in 15 minutes over the past seven days, but contributed 20% of handling fees-their profitability is outstanding. This has to do with Kalshi's fee structure: transaction fees depend on the expected return of the contract. The effective rate is highest when the contract price approaches 50 cents (i.e., the probability of long and short positions is equal); as the price moves in extreme directions, the rate drops.

Since traders usually decide on the rise and fall of assets in a very short period of time, the short-term price market often trades around balanced odds, a pricing model that drives up the fee contribution. Data shows that in the seven days ending October 5, Kalshi collected estimated fees of more than $3 million per day from 15 minutes of encryption, commodities and financial products on four days, which hit $3.3 million on Friday.

Commodities business expands rapidly

The rise of the gold market follows the expansion of Kalshi's commodities business. Kalshi announced on September 8 that cumulative trading volume in the commodity market reached US$400 million in seven months, a goal that took half the time it took to reach was reached in the cryptocurrency category. At the same stage of development, commodity contracts generated more than four times the transaction volume of the Kalshi crypto market.

What needs to be distinguished is that $400 million refers to the total amount of dollar-denominated transactions, while the 542 million gold contracts in September were calculated based on the number of contracts. Currently, the commodity product line has been expanded to include silver, oil, copper and agricultural products, with the results determined by designated external pricing sources.

At the same time, Kalshi is also expanding other financial products. Earlier this year, its crypto perpetual contract business exceeded US$5.5 billion in transaction volume within two weeks of launch. Previously, Kalshi was questioned for the abnormally high trading volume of Ethereum perpetual contracts. The company explained that this originated from a liquidity plan and was a product different from forecast market contracts. This is crucial because the 318 million pieces of Ethereum data mentioned above refer to 15-minute event contracts, not ETH perpetual contracts.

Non-sports business becomes a new growth point

Kalshi's non-sports business is growing rapidly with the rise of short-term products. InGame found that the non-sports market accounted for more than 25% of Kalshi's estimated fee revenue in September. Looking at the whole year of 2026 to October 6, its share is 19.2%, compared with only 11% in the same period in 2025.

Cryptocurrencies still account for the largest share of the 15-minute market group. Analysis shows that the total daily encryption fee soared from less than US$10,000 in January to an average of more than US$2 million in September. The rapid rise of gold shows that the format has been successfully extended to the commodity sector. For example, a gold contract retrieved from an exchange on September 25 had more than $386,000 in a single 15-minute market.

Kalshi 的整体业务也在同步增长。据报道，该公司在获得 220 亿美元的估值后，正以接近 400 亿美元的估值讨论筹集约 10 亿美元的新资金。此外，Kalshi 还在推进商品领域的另一项产品扩张，已于 9 月申请了挂钩黄金、白银和铂金的永续合约，但尚未公布具体发布日期。