The prediction-market operator is publishing Brier scores and flagging thinly traded contracts ahead of the elections, while pushing into products that look more like traditional derivatives.
Kalshi is trying to answer two questions at once: whether its election markets can be trusted, and whether it can become more than an election venue.
On the first, the company has added Brier scores, a standard statistical measure of forecast accuracy, to all of its midterm election markets. It is also tagging contracts with less than $10,000 in trading volume as low-volume and adding activity feeds that show recent trading. The changes give users a way to judge whether a given price reflects deep, informed trading or a handful of small bets.
The timing is deliberate. The midterm elections on will put a large slate of contracts in front of users, and many of them cover smaller races with limited trading.
On the second, Kalshi has launched a perpetual futures contract tied to a U.S. 500-stock index. Perpetual futures, which have no expiration date, have been a mainstay of crypto trading. Offering one on equities puts Kalshi closer to the territory of traditional derivatives exchanges.
A broader race for short-dated contracts
Kalshi is not alone in blurring the lines. Coinbase has introduced 15-minute crypto price contracts, and on Kalshi itself, 15-minute gold contracts have surpassed ether contracts in trading volume and fees. Short-duration, high-frequency event contracts are becoming a significant source of activity, pulling these platforms further from their origins in long-dated political and economic questions.
Competition is also shifting. Polymarket is preparing a second version of its platform, scheduled for , and will retire version one of its data interface on .
What to watch
The midterm season will show whether accuracy scores and low-volume tags actually change how traders and the public read prediction-market prices. The perpetual contract's early volumes will show whether the stock-trading audience follows.