Perpetual contracts have spent years becoming one of crypto’s most recognizable trading products. Kalshi now wants to take that structure somewhere more traditional: individual U.S. stocks.
According to a September 21 report, Kalshi has filed a proposed rule change to introduce perpetual contracts linked to U.S. stocks. The contracts would have no preset expiry and would use funding payments between long and short positions to help keep prices aligned with the underlying shares. The proposal remains subject to approval by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The bigger story is therefore not simply that another derivatives product could reach the market. Kalshi’s proposal shows how trading structures developed around crypto are beginning to cross into traditional assets. That could give traders new ways to gain stock exposure, but it also brings leverage, funding, and liquidation risk into a market many investors still associate with straightforward share ownership.
Crypto mechanics are moving into stocks
Traditional stock derivatives usually come with familiar boundaries. Options expire. Futures settle according to predetermined contract terms. Perpetuals remove one of those boundaries by allowing a position to remain open without a fixed settlement date.
Instead, funding payments help keep the contract from drifting too far from its underlying reference. Depending on market positioning and the contract rules, payments move between traders on the long and short sides.
Kalshi reportedly wants to apply this structure to U.S. stocks and clear the contracts through its CFTC-registered clearing organization, KalshiKlear. Coinbase has reportedly submitted a similar proposal, suggesting that the interest extends beyond a single venue.
That does not mean U.S. stock perpetuals are ready to trade. Kalshi’s proposal still needs regulatory approval, while final specifications covering margin, funding, market access, and other trading conditions would need to be confirmed.
The distinction matters because derivatives create their own layer of mechanics on top of the asset they track. A trader can correctly anticipate where a stock is heading and still lose money because of leverage, funding costs, or liquidation.
Owning the direction is not owning the stock
The absence of an expiry date makes perpetuals flexible, but it does not make them equivalent to holding shares.
A perpetual position provides price exposure through a derivative contract. It does not necessarily provide the ownership rights associated with the underlying company, such as voting rights or dividends. More importantly for active traders, the position remains subject to margin requirements.
Funding adds another variable. When positioning becomes heavily tilted toward one side of the market, that side may have to pay the other. A trade that looks inexpensive when opened can therefore become more costly to maintain if funding remains unfavorable.
Leverage makes the distinction even sharper. Owning a stock allows an investor to continue holding through a large price move as long as they choose not to sell. A leveraged perpetual position may not have that luxury. If available margin falls below the required level, liquidation can close the position before the original thesis has a chance to play out.
That makes the eventual contract terms just as important as the stock attached to them. Traders should not assume that mechanics familiar from crypto perpetuals will transfer unchanged to a stock-based product.
The details will determine the real product
If the proposal receives approval, the headline will quickly become less important than the contract specifications.
Contract size, collateral, maximum leverage, funding intervals, fees, trading hours, index construction, mark price, and liquidation rules will determine how the product actually behaves. Each can affect the economics of a position independently of the underlying stock’s direction.
Trading hours could be particularly important. U.S. shares trade within defined market sessions, while a perpetual venue may operate on a different schedule. If the derivative remains active while the underlying cash market is closed, liquidity and price discovery could behave differently during overnight moves or major news events.
Execution introduces another layer. A market order prioritizes immediate execution, but that convenience can come with greater slippage when liquidity thins or volatility jumps. A limit order gives traders more control over price, but there is no guarantee that it will fill.
These mechanics may sound secondary when a new product is announced. Once capital is committed, they become part of the trade itself.
More access also means more ways to take risk
Stock perpetuals could make it easier for traders familiar with crypto derivatives to express views on individual companies without managing an expiry date. That convenience does not simplify the underlying risk.
A trader would still need to decide how much capital can be lost, how much leverage is appropriate, and how changing funding affects the cost of staying in a position. Concentrating collateral in a single leveraged trade can also turn an ordinary move in the underlying stock into a much larger portfolio loss.
The product structure therefore deserves as much attention as the company being traded. A strong view on a stock does not automatically translate into a good perpetual trade when entry price, leverage, funding, liquidity, and liquidation thresholds are working alongside it.
The headline is only the beginning
Kalshi’s proposal is worth watching because it sits at the intersection of two markets that have historically developed under very different trading structures. Perpetuals became mainstream in crypto partly because they offered continuous leveraged exposure without traditional expiry cycles. Bringing that model to U.S. stocks would test whether the same structure can operate within a more established regulatory and market framework.
For traders, the practical response is not to trade the headline. It is to watch what comes next.
Regulatory approval would be the first step. The contract documentation would matter after that. Only once funding rules, leverage, collateral, pricing, trading hours, and liquidation mechanics are clear can traders properly judge how stock perpetuals differ from simply owning the underlying shares.
The product may look familiar. The risks still need to be read from the beginning.
