Kalshi moves beyond prediction markets with a copper perpetual futures filing Prediction-market operator Kalshi has filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to launch a perpetual futures contract tied to copper, signaling a push further into crypto-style derivatives trading. The August 18 filing proposes a COPPERPERP contract that would track the spot price of copper in U.S. dollars per pound using a price feed from Pyth Network — a blockchain-based market-data provider that aggregates quotes from exchanges, market makers and financial firms. Perpetual futures, or “perps,” differ from traditional futures by having no expiration date, letting traders hold positions indefinitely without rolling into a new contract. Kalshi’s filing says the Copper Perp would be cash-settled — no physical metal would change hands — and would use periodic funding payments between long and short participants to keep the contract’s price aligned with the underlying copper spot price. The move extends Kalshi’s business beyond its core event-based wagering model. It arrives less than a week after a Washington judge ordered the company to stop offering wagers on sports, elections, politics and other events in the state. It also follows the CFTC’s May approval for Kalshi to offer Bitcoin perpetual futures, part of the platform’s broader expansion into regulated derivatives. Copper is a strategic industrial metal used across power grids, construction, electric vehicles, electronics and infrastructure for AI data centers — and it’s already actively traded on major futures venues such as CME’s COMEX, the London Metal Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange. Rival prediction-market firm Polymarket has likewise flagged plans to offer perpetual futures earlier this year, naming names like Nvidia and Coinbase as reference points. By pairing a regulated futures product with an on-chain price feed from Pyth, Kalshi’s filing underscores growing convergence between traditional commodities markets, regulated derivatives, and blockchain-native market infrastructure. The CFTC’s response and the broader market reception will determine whether COPPERPERP becomes another bridge between conventional commodities trading and crypto-enabled data and execution layers. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news