The history of the futures and derivatives markets is marked by a number of key inflection points: the first agricultural futures in the 1800s with the Chicago Board of Trade; the growth of the financial futures products in the 1980s; and the globalization of the swaps market in the 2000s. Though the circumstances differed, each of these innovations had two crucial common characteristics: they addressed real economic risks for Americans and ultimately achieved markets with integrity by moving the activity into centralized regulated exchanges. Kalshi’s mission is in the same simple, yet bold vein: give Americans a tool to take control of economic risks that affect their everyday lives.

There is no greater determinant of how Americans will live their lives than who we elect to government to make decisions on our behalf. Policy on taxes, environment, healthcare, energy, education, and practically every economic aspect of a person’s life all stem from which party sits in the majority. Each of these policy decisions present meaningful changes and risks to Americans’ economic realities and bottom lines. Today, there is no regulated financial product that allows Americans to hedge against these economic consequences or get a true signal on what policy direction the country is most likely heading.

Election markets have been widely offered in the U.S. for nearly a decade on a variety of unregulated venues and have garnered significant activity and mass recognition. Additionally, large institutions gain financial exposure to election outcomes by creating over-the-counter (OTC) contracts brokered by big banks. These instruments are available exclusively to large Wall Street institutions, and not accessible to average Americans or Main Street. Abroad, in democracies like the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, trading on elections is commonplace and attracts large volume–especially on American elections.

It is time to bring election markets home, into the light, and onto a fully regulated exchange that brings their hedging and forecasting power to all individuals and businesses, while ensuring proper participant and marketplace protections are in place. To that effect, Kalshi has filed a proposal for contracts on political control of the House and the Senate.

Today, Kalshi’s federal regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), announced that it is seeking public comment on Kalshi’s proposed contracts on political control of the House and the Senate. We are thrilled about this opportunity for public consideration of these vital hedging and price discovery tools.

The upcoming decision by the CFTC marks a critical juncture that inevitably arises from innovation in financial markets: we encourage all members of the public who believe in expanding access to events and election risk hedging tools to submit comments to the CFTC that these contracts belong on a regulated exchange.

We are grateful for the Commission’s deliberate and thoughtful consideration of our proposal and its engagement with us on these contracts over the last 10 months. We look forward to the agency completing this process in a timely manner and to continuing the conversation.with all stakeholders.