Commodity Groups Urge CFTC to Reject Kalshi's Oil Perpetual Futures

Kalshi's proposed oil perpetual futures contract has drawn opposition from a coalition of commodity exchanges and energy hedgers, who have asked US regulators to block the product.

The Commodity Markets Council, whose members include CME, NYMEX, and ICE Futures US, along with trading firms and commercial hedgers, sent a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) warning that oil perpetuals threaten market integrity and urging the regulator to withhold approval, according to Bloomberg. The letter did not name Kalshi, but the filings and dates it cited match Kalshi's WTIPERP contract.

Kalshi filed for the NYMEX-linked WTI perpetual contract on 20 October. The application remains pending, and the contract cannot begin trading unless the CFTC approves it.

Kalshi: How WTIPERP Would Work

The proposed contract, called WTIPERP, would have no expiry date, allowing traders to hold a position without rolling it into a new contract each month. Its reference price would be calculated from two nearby NYMEX WTI futures, maintaining a constant one-month horizon as delivery months change. Daily funding payments would help keep the trading price close to that reference.

WTIPERP would follow standard oil-futures trading hours, closing over weekends and observing the same holidays and early closures. Trading could pause if the underlying market halted. Each cash-settled contract would represent 100 barrels, one-tenth of a standard oil future. For position limits, Kalshi would convert holdings into equivalent exposure to standard contracts and allocate that exposure across the relevant delivery months.

The council's letter also warned that US traders can use VPNs to access offshore commodity platforms and asked the CFTC to work with foreign regulators to restrict that access. The council is thus pressing for limits on US-listed oil perpetuals while arguing that traders should not be able to bypass those limits offshore.

Kalshi told Bloomberg it had sought feedback from industry groups, but said some had not raised specific objections to its proposed contract. The company has also ruled out weekend trading, a choice that addresses a concern that recently led CME to shelve its own round-the-clock oil contract.