What happened in this Finance story?

Kalshi says the CFTC has not contacted the company and does not believe it is under formal investigation, pushing back on a Wall Street Journal report that the regulator was examining unusual trading activity on the prediction market.

What is a key fact in this story? (1)

**Kalshi** denied being under CFTC scrutiny, with spokesperson Elisabeth Diana stating the agency has not contacted the company and Kalshi does not believe any formal examination is underway; the CFTC declined to confirm or deny.

What is a key fact in this story? (2)

**The Wall Street Journal** reported Tuesday that the CFTC was reviewing trading data on Kalshi before deciding whether to open an enforcement investigation, following nearly one million similarly sized trades in an ether market.

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Kalshi Denies CFTC Probe Over Trading Patterns — SkimNews

By CoinDesk · Summarized & edited by Kapil Samant · 2026-09-23

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Kalshi denied being under CFTC scrutiny, with spokesperson Elisabeth Diana stating the agency has not contacted the company and Kalshi does not believe any formal examination is underway; the CFTC declined to confirm or deny.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the CFTC was reviewing trading data on Kalshi before deciding whether to open an enforcement investigation, following nearly one million similarly sized trades in an ether market.
CoinDesk reported earlier Tuesday that a majority of trading volume on Kalshi's bitcoin and ether perpetual markets consisted of identically-sized trades, with ether perp trades clustered around $5,500 and bitcoin perp trades around $2,500 or $5,000.
Beni, co-founder of research firm Stealth Neolab, found trades of exactly $5,500 made up 48% to 58% of notional volume on four days in September, with Kalshi's ether perpetual recording about $539 million in 24-hour volume against just $3.1 million in open interest.
Diana attributed the patterns to Kalshi's liquidity incentive program, which rewards participants for providing two-sided orders, and noted Kalshi sends its trading data to the CFTC daily.
Diana said Kalshi has a "full surveillance team" and tools to guard against wash trading and self-trading, and dismissed social media speculation about the exchange as "rumors seeded by competitors."

Why it matters: With prediction markets expanding rapidly, the core question is whether Kalshi's $539 million in 24-hour ether perpetual volume—against just $3.1 million in open interest—reflects genuine liquidity or manufactured activity. Kalshi's explanation of standard liquidity incentives, paired with its claim that it has robust anti-wash-trading tools, leaves that question unresolved while the CFTC itself stays silent.