Kalshi faces wash-trading claims over crypto volume

Beni wrote, “Kalshi fakes their crypto volume and I can prove it.” His posts present that statement as an allegation. They do not establish through an enforcement finding, exchange audit or identified trading accounts that wash trades occurred.

Kalshi rebate filing puts crypto perps under scrutiny

A separate part of Beni’s argument focused on Kalshi’s temporary perpetual fee rebate program, which can be checked against the exchange’s official regulatory filing.

Kalshi submitted its latest program update to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Sept. 2. The filing was certified on Sept. 16, according to the CFTC filing database. Kalshi said the program applies to all of its perpetual markets, including cryptocurrency and metals contracts, and remains scheduled to run through Dec. 31 unless amended or ended sooner.

For cryptocurrency perpetuals, eligible taker fees are rebated down to 0.3 basis points, or 0.003%. Eligible makers receive rebates that leave them with a net 0.3-basis-point payment. The terms define eligible participants as all Kalshi Self-Clearing Members.

Beni cited the positive maker rebate and reduced taker charge to argue that matched trading could face little or no combined fee cost. Kalshi’s filing addresses that structure directly: payments must be reduced when overlapping incentive programs would produce net-negative combined maker and taker fees on an individual trade.

More importantly for the wash-trading allegation, the same document states that fees from transactions resulting from, or being investigated for, self-matching, wash trading, pre-arranged trading or other abusive practices are excluded from rebate eligibility. Kalshi says its Chief Regulatory Officer can revoke a participant’s program status and pursue disciplinary proceedings when warranted.

The filing therefore confirms the rebate rates Beni discussed, but it does not establish that rebates were paid on wash trades.

Kalshi says prediction volume and perps were conflated

Kalshi crypto lead IcoBeast disputed Beni’s argument in a Sept. 20 response on X, saying two separate products had been mixed together.

IcoBeast said the Artemis chart that prompted the initial exchange concerned prediction-market share, not perpetual futures. He said Kalshi does not operate the cited rebate program for its crypto prediction markets and described the perpetual incentives as a separate program.

Kalshi’s own documentation confirms the product distinction. Its current trading glossary defines prediction-market volume as the number of contracts traded during a period. The same glossary states that perpetual futures are separate products involving margin, leverage, funding payments and no fixed expiry.

Beni separately alleged that Kalshi’s interface displays prediction-market contract volume beside a dollar sign, which he argued could make contract counts appear to represent dollars traded. The reviewed Kalshi glossary confirms that its stated prediction-market definition is contract count, but the historical interface presentation described in Beni’s screenshots was not independently verified.

IcoBeast maintained that Kalshi uses a convention common among prediction platforms. “I know it’s all real,” he wrote in an earlier exchange after Beni questioned the reported activity.

Kalshi’s $ETH perpetual market has operated since June. As crypto.news reported when $ETH-PERP launched, the exchange introduced Ethereum perpetual futures shortly after its regulated Bitcoin perpetual contract began trading in the U.S. Kalshi has since expanded to Bitcoin and 17 altcoin perpetual products.

In related coverage, crypto.news reported in June that Kalshi said perpetual volume exceeded $5.5 billion within the first two weeks of the product rollout. That figure came from Kalshi through Bloomberg and predates the present dispute.

CFTC guidance specifically addresses wash-trading risks

The CFTC had issued detailed guidance on exchange incentive programs more than a month before the current dispute.

In its Aug. 12 staff advisory, the Division of Market Oversight said properly structured incentive programs can support liquidity and price discovery, while some designs can encourage improper activity if controls are inadequate. The advisory mainly discusses prediction-market programs, though it states that the cited core-principle requirements apply to other derivatives traded on designated contract markets.

CFTC staff specifically warned that steep volume thresholds can increase the risk of wash trading and pre-arranged transactions. It said market-maker arrangements that guarantee net profits or cover losses through rebates may encourage artificial strategies.

The advisory did not accuse Kalshi of either practice. It directed exchanges to conduct real-time surveillance, build program-specific controls and use monitoring capable of finding suspicious wash or fictitious trading patterns.

Kalshi’s Sept. 2 rebate filing addresses several of those areas. The company told the CFTC that it had reviewed potential manipulation risks, would monitor participating Self-Clearing Members with heightened attention and would exclude suspicious transactions from rebates. The exchange said its program is public and offered to eligible members on nondiscriminatory terms.

IcoBeast pushed back on Beni’s suggestion that Kalshi picks the Self-Clearing Members benefiting from the program. CFTC guidance states that designated contract markets must provide impartial, transparent and nondiscriminatory access, while participants still have to satisfy applicable financial and operational requirements.

The regulator separately reminded exchanges in February that wash sales, pre-arranged transactions and noncompetitive trading can violate the Commodity Exchange Act. It said designated contract markets have an independent duty to maintain audit trails, conduct surveillance and enforce their trading rules.

Market-maker rebates exist beyond Kalshi

IcoBeast compared Kalshi’s incentives with programs used elsewhere in derivatives trading. Public documentation confirms that maker rebates are not unique to the company.

Hyperliquid’s current fee schedule provides maker rebates for traders meeting specified volume-share thresholds. Its documentation lists rebates reaching negative 0.003% at the highest displayed maker tier, though Hyperliquid separately states that it does not operate a designated market-maker program with privately negotiated special fees.

Binance’s Liquidity Hub similarly publishes maker programs for spot and futures markets. Its U.S.-dollar-margined futures program lists negative maker fees for qualifying tiers, meaning eligible liquidity providers receive rebates.

Kalshi has separately announced a multi-year agreement with Nasdaq Market Surveillance. In its Aug. 10 company release, Kalshi said the system would cover both event contracts and perpetual futures and provide cross-market monitoring intended to identify manipulation, insider trading and other abusive activity. The description represents Kalshi’s stated surveillance setup, not an independent audit of the $ETH-PERP trading questioned by Beni.

Jump relationship does not establish wash trading

Beni brought Jump Trading into his argument, pointing to a previously reported commercial relationship between the trading firm and Kalshi.

Bloomberg reported in February, citing people familiar with the matter, that Jump was set to receive a small Kalshi equity stake in exchange for providing liquidity. Bloomberg described the Kalshi arrangement as involving a set amount of equity. Kalshi and Jump were not quoted in that report confirming the terms.

A separate trading relationship is publicly documented. As crypto.news previously reported, Jump supplied liquidity for Kalshi’s first bespoke prediction-market block trade, involving a carbon allowance contract.

No official filing or enforcement record reviewed for this report identifies Jump as responsible for the $ETH-PERP volume Beni questioned, and the reported commercial relationship by itself does not establish wash trading.

Late in the dispute, Beni said he had received new non-public information and was delaying another Kalshi thread for roughly 24 to 48 hours while consulting lawyers. He said he planned to provide an update after determining what information he could publish; no regulator filing or independently verifiable evidence supporting that new claim had appeared publicly at the time of writing.