Kalshi Perpetual Futures (Perpetuals), explained — long & short, leverage, funding, and liquidation

Perps are unique in three ways:

Two-way trading: you can trade on whether the price of an asset will go up or down without owning it.

No expiration: predictions and options have a strict end date. Perps never expire — you can hold a position for five minutes or five months and cash out whenever you want.

Leverage: you control a larger position than the cash you put in, which amplifies both your gains and your losses.

A perp follows an asset's price, but it trades in its own market with its own buyers and sellers, so the two prices can drift apart. To keep them close, platforms use a mechanism called the funding rate. Kalshi rebalances the prices three times a day.

If more traders hold an up position, the perp price gets too high, so they pay a fee to the traders with a down position to bring it back. If more hold a down position, it works in reverse.

Example: You hold a $5,000 up position and the funding rate comes in at 0.01% for that window. You pay $0.50 to traders positioned down. If funding were -0.01%, you'd receive $0.50 instead.

You can see the real-time funding rate directly on each product page — if the funding rate shows 0%, no one is paying anyone. Funding fees are strictly capped at 2% of your position per 8-hour window.

The cash in your Perpetuals margin account earns interest, whether it's backing an open position or sitting in your account. The current rate is set at 3.25%. Interest is calculated on your balance at the end of each day and currently paid out once a month. You'll need an average balance of at least $250 to qualify.

You earn interest whether you trade an up or down position. Keep in mind that interest isn't a cushion against losses: fees, funding rate, and a losing trade can outweigh what it adds, and it doesn't prevent liquidation.

Interest accrual is currently available only to eligible users in the United States and its territories. Rate and eligibility are subject to change.

When you open a trade with leverage, your initial capital acts as a safety cushion. If the market moves against you, that cushion shrinks — and once it falls below the minimum required, Kalshi automatically closes your position to limit further losses. That's liquidation. It's designed to stop losses from growing, but it can't guarantee your balance won't go negative.

The golden rule of leverage: more leverage means a thinner cushion, and less room for your trade to survive normal market swings. At 5× leverage, a Bitcoin drop of around 7% could wipe out your cushion and liquidate you.

What to do about it: set a stop-loss when you open your trade, so you decide the price where it closes instead of leaving it up to liquidation.

Auto-liquidation mechanisms are designed to limit losses by closing positions when margin thresholds are breached, but they do not function as a guaranteed stop-loss. Rapid or extreme market movements, including gaps in price or periods of illiquidity, may result in execution at prices significantly worse than the liquidation trigger, potentially producing a negative account balance.

Minimums tend to be low and depend on the asset. Each Perpetual sets its own minimum size, but generally you can get started for as little as $1. To earn interest on your cash, you'll need an average daily balance of at least $250.

Yes. Kalshi's Perpetuals are CFTC-approved perpetual futures. Kalshi is the first company in US history to offer regulated perpetual futures to American traders.