Kalshi copper perpetual futures filing outlines cash-settled contract
Kalshi has filed to list a copper perpetual future with 1,000-pound contracts, funding payments and no physical delivery.
By Sofia Marchetti · Columnist
· 3 min read
Kalshi has filed to list Kalshi copper perpetual futures, a proposed price-linked contract that would track the U.S. dollar spot price of copper per pound. For investors, the key point is that this is a filing, not a product that has been approved or started trading.
The proposed contract, called COPPERPERP, would be settled in cash, so no physical copper would change hands. According to Quartz, it would use Pyth Network's XCU/USD price feed as its reference price. Pyth is a market-data provider that aggregates prices from exchanges, market makers and other financial firms, Decrypt reported.
Kalshi has operated event-based prediction markets; COPPERPERP would instead be a price-linked derivative. Its profit or loss would depend on the movement in copper's price rather than whether a defined event occurs.
How would Kalshi's copper perpetual futures work?
A perpetual future is a derivative with no preset expiration date. Unlike a conventional futures contract that ends on a specified date, a holder could keep a perpetual position open until closing it, subject to the product's trading rules.
Quartz reported that each proposed COPPERPERP contract would represent 1,000 pounds of copper and have a minimum price movement, or tick, of $0.0005 per pound. That means one minimum tick would equal $0.50 per contract: 1,000 pounds multiplied by $0.0005.
The filing proposes trading from 6 p.m. Eastern on Sunday through 5 p.m. Eastern on Friday. A funding payment would be calculated at 10 a.m. Eastern on weekdays. Funding is a payment exchanged between traders on opposite sides of a perpetual contract, intended to keep the contract's market price close to its copper spot-price reference.
Kalshi's educational materials say perpetuals let traders take a view on prices rising or falling without owning the underlying asset. Those materials also warn that leverage, which allows a trader to control a larger position with less upfront cash, magnifies both gains and losses and can lead to liquidation.
How is a copper perpetual different from a Kalshi event contract?
Kalshi describes its event contracts as time-bounded claims on a specific outcome. Under its explanation, a correct contract settles at $1 and an incorrect one at $0, with the loss limited to the entry price.
Futures work differently. A position's gain or loss changes with the size of the underlying price move, according to Kalshi's comparison guide. The proposed copper contract also has no set expiry, while event contracts settle once their defined outcome is known.
The copper proposal was filed alongside a perpetual contract tied to the MerQube U.S. Large Cap Index, Quartz reported. Decrypt reported that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved Kalshi's Bitcoin perpetual futures offering in May. The new filings would extend Kalshi's perpetual-futures push beyond crypto, but the available reporting does not establish when, or whether, COPPERPERP will begin trading.
This story draws on original reporting from Decrypt.
