Kalshi faces ‘fake crypto volume’ allegations as critic flags identical $5,500 trades
Kalshi clarified that its inflated headline volume stems from an industry-wide convention tracking maximum potential payouts rather than actual cash spent, emphasizing its public regulatory filings ensure absolute transparency.
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Summary
- Kalshi’s crypto lead denied wash trading allegations after a quant analyst flagged a $539M trading volume alongside a $3.1 million open interest anomaly fueled by repetitive $5,500 trades.
- The analyst alleged that a CFTC-filed net-zero fee schedule incentivized fake trading, while Kalshi countered that its baseline fees strictly deter volume manipulation.
- Kalshi clarified that its inflated headline volume stems from an industry-wide convention tracking maximum potential payouts rather than actual cash spent, emphasizing its public regulatory filings ensure absolute transparency.
perpetual contract (ETH-PERP). He noted that it logged $539 million in 24-hour trading volume against an open interest of just $3.1 million.
In other words, the trading volume is 174 times larger than the open interest. This is typically seen as a textbook sign of wash or fake trading volume, whereby fake buying and selling lifts the aggregate trading activity tally while overall positioning, or money at stake, remains low.
