What happened in this Finance story?

Kalshi pushed back against a Wall Street Journal report that the CFTC was scrutinizing its trading activity, saying the regulator has not contacted the company and attributing unusually uniform trades in its ether perpetual market to its liquidity incentive program.

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

**Kalshi** said the CFTC has not contacted the company and does not believe a formal examination is underway, directly contradicting a Wall Street Journal report that the regulator was reviewing its trading activity before deciding whether to open an enforcement investigation.

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

The **CFTC** declined to confirm or deny whether an investigation was underway when asked about the WSJ report.

📎 SkimNews has covered Kalshi 29+ times · see the file →

Kalshi says it is not being investigated by the CFTC over trading activity — SkimNews

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

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Kalshi said the CFTC has not contacted the company and does not believe a formal examination is underway, directly contradicting a Wall Street Journal report that the regulator was reviewing its trading activity before deciding whether to open an enforcement investigation.
The CFTC declined to confirm or deny whether an investigation was underway when asked about the WSJ report.
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 September days, and that Kalshi's ether perpetual recorded about $539 million in 24-hour volume against just $3.1 million in open interest.
Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana attributed the patterns to the platform's liquidity incentive program, which rewards participants for providing liquidity, calling such patterns "common in financial markets."
Diana said Kalshi has "tons of tools" and a "full surveillance team in place" to combat wash trading, and dismissed speculation circulating on X as "rumors seeded by competitors."

Why it matters: The gap between Kalshi's denial and the CFTC's refusal to confirm or deny leaves traders and counterparties unable to assess whether the platform's reported $539 million in daily ether-perp volume — against just $3.1 million in open interest — reflects genuine liquidity provision or wash-style activity, and how the agency ultimately characterizes Kalshi's incentive model could set precedent for volume reporting across the prediction-market sector.