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Kalshi has filed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to launch a perpetual futures contract tied to a broad U.S. stock index, extending a trading model popularized in crypto into equity markets. The August 18 filing seeks CFTC review and approval for a contract called US500, which Kalshi intends to list only after receiving regulatory approval.
Unlike traditional futures, the proposed contract would have no fixed expiration date. Traders could maintain long or short exposure without regularly rolling positions into new contracts, while a funding mechanism would help keep the perpetual contract aligned with its underlying index.
US500 Would Track Broad U.S. Equity Index
The filing says US500 would reference the MerQube US Large Cap Index, which tracks 500 of the largest U.S.-listed and U.S.-domiciled companies and weights them by float-adjusted market capitalization. Despite the US500 name, the filing does not identify the underlying benchmark as the S&P 500.
The company argues that the structure could provide continuous exposure without the expiration dates and contract rolls used in conventional equity index futures. Kalshi said:
“Perpetuals are an especially natural fit for a broad equity market index.”
Funding Payments Would Replace Expiration-Based Convergence
The proposed contract would be cash-settled and use a $1 multiplier for each index point. Funding would be calculated on U.S. equity-market business days, with payments between long and short positions designed to limit differences between the perpetual contract and the reference index.
Kalshi’s filing classifies US500 as a futures contract on a broad-based security index and says it falls within the CFTC’s jurisdiction. The contract remains subject to CFTC review before Kalshi can list it.
Kalshi Expands Perpetual Futures Beyond Crypto
The CFTC approved Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual futures contract in May, marking the platform’s first approved product using the structure. The regulator said at the time that perpetual contracts involving other asset classes should undergo separate review because their regulatory treatment depends on the characteristics of the underlying market.
Kalshi also filed for a copper perpetual contract on August 18. The stock-index application therefore represents another step in its effort to extend perpetual futures beyond digital assets into traditional markets.
