Prediction markets just had their biggest month — and now they sell stock perps

The biggest month

Prediction markets had their biggest month yet in October 2026. Notional trading volume hit $123.6 billion, according to a16z crypto, which puts that at 1.5 times the combined volume of 2024 and 2025. Cash paid into the markets was $22.7 billion in the month alone, more than the $20.9 billion paid in during the whole of 2025. Contracts traded rose 58% in October, total trades reached 644 million, up 36%, and fees reached $647 million, up 27%. Open interest reached $3.1 billion, up 42%. m:…5631

The gap between the two headline numbers is worth pausing on. Notional volume of $123.6 billion against $22.7 billion of cash paid in means most of the volume is the same money turning over, not new money arriving. That is normal for a market, and it is also the reason the growth deserves a second look: fees of $647 million in a month are real revenue, but they are earned on turnover, and turnover can leave as fast as it arrived. Open interest of $3.1 billion, up 42%, is the steadier signal — it is money actually standing behind open positions. m:…5631

The audience numbers explain why the industry is suddenly confident. Kalshi drew 28 million site visits in October, according to a16z crypto, and Polymarket drew 38 million — the same as Bloomberg's 38 million, and ahead of Politico's 32 million. A16z crypto's own framing is that prediction markets function as media properties as much as financial markets. A venue with Bloomberg-scale traffic that also collects trading fees is a different business from either a news site or an exchange alone. m:…5631

The new product

Kalshi's next step is to sell the same machinery on stocks. The company says it launched regulated single stock perpetual futures in the United States, the first company to offer them, letting traders take positions on the price movements of more than 50 major companies listed on the NYSE and Nasdaq. Users traded more than $300 million in volume since the stealth launch, the company says. The products track traditional stock prices without requiring the holder to own the actual stock, and they have no expiration date. m:…2576

The pitch, as Kalshi states it, is simplicity against the two incumbents. Going short requires no special brokerage accounts, custody or borrow fees. Single stock perps are simpler than options because they lack strikes, Greeks and time decay, and cheaper than futures because they have no rollover fees. Leverage levels are approved under CFTC regulation, the company says, and the products sit under the joint oversight of the CFTC and the SEC. Kalshi charges a small, transparent trading fee instead of using the payment-for-order-flow model. It puts the global market for single stock perps at more than $4.5 trillion transacted a year. m:…2576

Kalshi did not start with stocks. The company says it previously launched perpetual futures on crypto in May and on gold and silver in September. Polymarket runs a perpetuals platform too: its status feed records scheduled maintenance for its Perpetuals platform on November 6, affecting the Perpetuals API, market data and trading for an hour. The product category is now a two-venue race, and the venues are moving from event contracts into instruments that look, to a trader, like the rest of the market. m:…2576 m:…9604

Markets or media

Kalshi is also buying the kind of legitimacy that regulators and parents notice. The company says it is a federally regulated financial exchange, and it has entered a three-year partnership with Everfi to provide digital wellness and STEM career-readiness education to New York middle school students at no cost. Everfi served 168,000 students in New York during the previous school year, including 73,000 in New York City. The digital safety curriculum covers social media algorithms, AI-generated content and healthy digital habits, and the STEM curriculum covers data science, engineering, healthcare, software development, advanced manufacturing and transportation systems. Students completing the courses improved their knowledge by 28 percentage points in digital safety and 31 points in STEM career readiness, according to the announcement. m:…2577

Put the two halves together and the tension is plain. One half of the business sells leveraged bets on single stocks to adults and collects fees on $123.6 billion of monthly turnover. The other half teaches middle schoolers digital wellness. Both halves are real, and both are deliberate: the industry is growing fast enough to attract attention, and it is spending some of that attention on respectability. The open question is which half the next year belongs to — the trading venue that keeps adding products, or the media property that happens to take bets. m:…5631 m:…2576 m:…2577