Kalshi perpetual futures could list two business days after an IPO

Kalshi wants to list perpetual futures on a newly public company two business days after its IPO, down from about a month today. The SEC published the filing notice on 6 November, as NewsBTC reported, and the change takes effect on 19 November. The filing needs no SEC approval vote, but the SEC can strike the change down within 60 days of that date.

Kalshi perpetual futures are cash-settled contracts on a stock’s price with no expiry date. You never own the share. Kalshi filed the change on 4 November under file SR-KALSHIEX-2026-03 and certified it with the CFTC the same day.

From a month to two business days

Kalshi’s rule 14.3 asks a stock to show average daily trading of at least $1 billion over the prior month if it has traded for under six months. A stock with less than a month of history cannot meet that test. The filing adds two exceptions:

• a stock with under a month of trading can qualify with total volume of at least 2.4 million shares since its IPO day;
• the five-day test of a $3 closing price is waived for the first three business days after the IPO, if the company’s market capitalization at the offering price is at least $3 billion.

In Kalshi’s example, a company that goes public on a Monday at a $3 billion valuation could have a perpetual contract on Wednesday. Without the waiver, the earliest date would be the following Monday.

The $100 billion condition

Market capitalization is the real filter. The stock must still be worth at least $100 billion at current prices, the filing says, with a public float of 7 million shares and at least 2,000 holders. That leaves only the largest IPOs.

The notice names no company and cites only “anticipated trading interest”. Our reading is that it fits the IPO queue: Anthropic has filed for a Nasdaq listing, and investors told the WSJ it may price near $1 trillion.

Copied from the options market

US law requires listing standards for security futures to be no less restrictive than those for exchange-traded options. Kalshi says it copied the options exchanges, which changed their rules in 2023 to allow options two business days after an IPO so that investors could hedge sooner. It argues that perpetuals “will serve as valuable hedging tools” and reduce volatility in new stocks.

Wall Street wants the products blocked

The CFTC cleared Kalshi’s perpetuals without a vote. Kalshi filed on 18 September, and the agency’s 45-day clock ran out on 2 November, Ledger Insights reported. About 50 stocks and ETFs are on the list, from Nvidia and Tesla to SpaceX. Coinbase Derivatives, Bitnomial and Crypto.com’s Nadex have similar filings pending.

Wall Street objects. SIFMA asked the SEC and CFTC on 2 November to block the products and send them through standard review with public comment. Cboe, CME Group and Nasdaq sent similar letters in October. Offshore, Binance already leads this market.

What it means for you

If you trade perpetuals, a contract on a two-day-old stock has very little price history behind it, and the funding mechanism that ties the perpetual to the share adds its own risk. Read the contract specifications before you compare them with an offshore exchange. If you hold a fresh IPO, this gives you a way to hedge sooner than a month, if the SEC lets the rule stand past mid-January.

Based on NewsBTC’s report, SEC release 34-106841 of 6 November 2026 with Exhibit 4, and Ledger Insights’ report of 3 November. This is not investment advice.