According to CoinDesk, prediction market company Kalshi said in a filing on Friday that its new political contracts should be allowed to trade during the appeal of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Last week, a federal judge ruled that Kalshi's political prediction market can be traded in the United States and that the CFTC will not suffer significant damage by allowing these contracts to trade, but Kalshi will suffer "substantial and irreparable" damage if it blocks trading.
Kalshi said the suspension would deprive it of revenue from the current election cycle and give the CFTC a de facto win, even though it lost in court. Last year, Kalshi applied to list on the market but was blocked by the CFTC. The company sued and won last week. The CFTC applied for an emergency stay but lost that, too. The contract went live Thursday afternoon before being temporarily halted by the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Kalshi’s filing on Friday is aimed at convincing an appeals court judge that its contracts should be allowed to trade while the CFTC appeals the overall case. A trading halt would prevent Kalshi from recouping the “millions of dollars” it has invested in the new product and prevent it from “carving out a competitive niche” in a world of prediction markets enjoyed by offshore platforms such as Polymarket.