Kalshi Lists a US Stock Index Perpetual Future
Plus, Abstract is the second Layer 2 to set a shutdown date in five days
gm, Defiers!
These are the biggest stories in DeFi and crypto:
- Kalshi listed a US 500 perp with 15.3x leverage
- Abstract will shut down its Layer 2 on Dec. 15
- Agora won conditional OCC approval for an AUSD trust bank
- Arbitrum made Paxos' USDG its ecosystem dollar
- Glamsterdam activated on Ethereum's Sepolia testnet
A year ago Kalshi listed elections, weather and sports. On Tuesday it listed a perpetual future on 500 U.S. stocks with 15.3 times leverage. About $1.66 million traded by 10 p.m. ET.
Kalshi calls the contract the US 500. It is cash-settled, tracks the MerQube US Large Cap Index, pays funding daily and never expires. Two other firms moved the same day. Coinbase turned on 15-minute and hourly crypto price markets in every state except Nevada, and its help pages say Kalshi runs them. Bloomberg added 24/7 Hyperliquid perpetual prices to the Terminal.
The sequence that led here started in May. The CFTC approved Kalshi's bitcoin perpetual as a futures contract on May 29. CME sued in June and argued that a contract with funding payments and no delivery date is a swap, which follows different rules. In September, Polymarket launched 20x perps on its international site. Coinbase asked the CFTC for single-stock perpetuals. Robinhood turned on crypto perps for U.S. traders at up to 10x through Bitstamp. On Oct. 2, CFTC staff deemed Kalshi's US 500 filing approved. On Monday, staff let exchanges remove the expiry date from existing stock-index futures at Coinbase Derivatives' request. Kalshi launched the next day.
The legal structure is the one CME uses. Kalshi's contract trades through Kalshi Prime, a registered futures commission merchant, and clears through Kalshi Klear. The margin account is separate from a customer's prediction-market balance. The customer sees none of this and trades from the same app. Distribution is already in place. Robinhood routes event contracts to Kalshi and three other venues. That business traded 13.6 billion contracts in the second quarter for $156 million in revenue.
Volume is small and leverage is high. Kalshi's US 500 traded about $1.66 million by 10 p.m. ET on launch day, with $616,000 in open interest. In September, one repeating trade size produced 62.75% of notional on Kalshi's ether perpetual, and Kalshi attributed it to a single paid market maker. That incentive program ends on Oct. 13. Kalshi is raising money at a $40 billion valuation while its margin guidance says losses can exceed posted collateral. CME's lawsuit over whether these contracts are futures or swaps is still open, and every contract launched since June depends on the answer.
Read more below!
Kalshi Launches US 500 Perpetual Future With No Expiration
Kalshi opened trading in a US 500 perpetual future on Oct. 6, giving approved customers leveraged long or short exposure to large U.S. stocks with no expiration date. The cash-settled contract tracks the MerQube US Large Cap Index at $1 per point, and CFTC staff deemed its Aug. 18 submission approved on Oct. 2. Funding is exchanged daily at 4 p.m. ET and capped at 2%. The market page showed 15.3x maximum leverage and about $1.66 million of volume by 10 p.m. ET on launch day.
Abstract to Shut Down Ethereum Layer 2 on Dec. 15
Abstract will shut down its consumer Ethereum Layer 2 on Dec. 15, the team said Oct. 6, and funds not bridged out by then will be inaccessible. It called a chain built only for consumer crypto "unsustainable as a standalone model," citing thin liquidity, a restricted DeFi ecosystem and a smaller budget than competitors. More than 144 apps had deployed there, and DefiLlama counted about $9.6 million locked on Oct. 6. Native-bridge withdrawals are quoted at about three hours.
Agora’s OCC Approval Sets Up AUSD Move to a US Trust Bank
Agora won preliminary conditional OCC approval, dated Sept. 18, to organize Agora National Trust Bank in New York and move AUSD issuance and reserves out of its Bermuda entity. The uninsured bank would serve institutions only and must hold $10 million in tier 1 capital for three years. About 219.1 million AUSD circulate. Rain filed for the same kind of charter on Oct. 5, three days after community banks sued the OCC to close the route.
Arbitrum Adopts Paxos' USDG as Its Ecosystem Dollar
Arbitrum joined Global Dollar Network and made Paxos' USDG its ecosystem-aligned dollar, live natively on Arbitrum One with Uniswap, Morpho, GMX, Fluid, Maple and Kraken behind it. The network pays partners up to 100% of the reserve income on USDG held on their platforms, and a same-day proposal asks the DAO for 100 million ARB in incentives. Ether.fi announced its own dollar, ether.fi USD, with Ethena running reserves, minting and compliance.
Ethereum’s Glamsterdam Upgrade Activates on Sepolia
Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade activated on Sepolia on Oct. 6. The first upgraded block finalized at 9:53 a.m. ET and the next epoch finalized too, both with missed slots and orphaned blocks. The gas limit began climbing from 60 million toward Prysm's 200 million default, in steps capped near 1/1024 of the parent block. EIP-7732 moves proposer-builder separation into the consensus protocol, and EIP-7928 adds block-level access lists, and mainnet dates remain undecided.
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