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Bonus TL;DR
- Kalshi denied wash-trading allegations regarding its ETH-PERP market, which posted $539 million in 24-hour volume against $3.1 million in open interest.
- While a former quant trader questioned the platform’s volume calculations, Kalshi defended its market-making incentives as standard for futures exchanges.
Kalshi is rejecting wash-trading allegations after questions surfaced over its ETH-PERP market posting about $539 million in 24-hour trading volume against roughly $3.1 million in open interest.
The dispute matters because Kalshi sits at the intersection of prediction markets, gambling-adjacent trading and crypto-linked products, where volume and liquidity metrics can shape confidence in market integrity. The claims, as reported by Wu Blockchain and cited in coverage by Suehyeon Lee, remain unproven, and Kalshi says the criticism misunderstands how its product works.
Volume and open interest figures triggered the dispute
According to the report, Beni, co-founder of Stealth Neolab and a former quant trader, questioned Kalshi’s reported crypto volume and raised wash-trading concerns. The focus was Kalshi’s ETH-PERP contract, which reportedly showed about $539 million in 24-hour volume while open interest stood near $3.1 million.
Beni also challenged how Kalshi calculates and displays trading volume. He later said he had obtained additional information that had not yet been made public and would share more after legal review.
No independent finding confirming the wash-trading allegations was cited in the source material.
Kalshi says critics are mixing up market structures
Kalshi’s head of crypto, IcoBeast, said the criticism confused crypto prediction markets with perpetual futures markets. He also said Kalshi does not offer rebates in its crypto prediction markets, pushing back on a common mechanism critics often point to in wash-trading discussions.
IcoBeast said the company’s market-making incentives for its perpetual futures product are similar to those used by CME Group, Hyperliquid and Binance. He also denied claims that Kalshi directly selects its own clearing members.
The exchange between Beni and Kalshi leaves several key questions unresolved, including how outside observers should interpret volume in the product and whether any third-party review will validate either side’s position.
What to watch next
For now, the clearest next step is whether Beni follows through on his statement that he will release more information after receiving legal advice.
The other open issue is whether Kalshi provides further detail on how volume in the ETH-PERP product is calculated and displayed. Until then, the public record reflected in the report consists of competing claims: a market-structure critique from an outside trader and a categorical denial from Kalshi.
Source: As reported by Suehyeon Lee.
