Critics allege Kalshi wash trading after repeated identical ETH perpetual trades and volume methodology questions

Kalshi faced allegations of wash trading and potentially inflated crypto market volume after critics questioned its ETH perpetual-market volume calculations and cited repeated identical $5,500 trades as evidence of non-organic activity ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

Wu Blockchain reported that Stealth Neolab co-founder and former quant trader Beni questioned Kalshi’s crypto trading volumes, citing ETH-PERP 24-hour volume of about $539M versus open interest around $3.1M, and he questioned how the platform calculates and displays volume ^[1].

Kalshi’s crypto lead IcoBeast responded that Beni conflated crypto prediction markets with perpetual futures, and Kalshi said it does not offer rebates for crypto prediction markets, while its perpetual futures market-making incentives are said to be similar to those used by CME, Hyperliquid, and Binance ^[1].

CoinDesk reported that Kalshi said its headline volume is inflated due to an industry convention that tracks maximum potential payouts rather than actual cash spent, and that it pointed to its public regulatory filings as providing transparency ^[2].

Crypto.news reported that Kalshi’s CFTC filings describe rebate safeguards in response to wash-trading claims ^[4].