Kalshi Adds Bitcoin-Backed Margin Loans, Webull Perpetuals Rails

Kalshi is letting customers borrow against their bitcoin to trade perpetual futures, rolling out a tri-party lending structure with custodian BitGo that Bloomberg first reported Wednesday. The same week, broker Webull said its more than 6 million U.S. customers will get access to Kalshi's perpetual contracts starting in November.

Customers of Kalshi Prime, the company's U.S.-registered futures commission merchant, will be able to borrow against digital assets held at BitGo and post the proceeds as margin on perpetual futures traded on Kalshi's main exchange. It's a direct pitch at crypto-native capital: traders can keep their bitcoin, ethereum and stablecoins intact while still funding leveraged positions.

How does the loan structure work?

The arrangement has three legs. Loans will be issued by Kalshi Katalyst, a lending affiliate of Kalshi Prime, and secured against collateral held at BitGo Bank & Trust, BitGo's federally chartered trust bank. Eligible collateral covers bitcoin, ethereum and stablecoins deemed compliant with the GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin framework.

Kalshi says additional custodians are expected to join the network over time, which would broaden the pool of assets and institutions that can plug into the margin-lending pipeline.

Prime CEO Jeff Bandman told Bloomberg the product was built for crypto-native traders, including those already active on unregulated offshore perpetuals venues, plus large holders who would rather not sell their bitcoin to fund futures positions. He also flagged unexpected demand from businesses — Latin American firms that run their operations on U.S. dollar stablecoins, for instance, and now have a regulated route to finance derivatives exposure without unwinding their working capital.

The structure addresses a gap Kalshi has acknowledged against Polymarket, its offshore, blockchain-based rival. Polymarket has long catered to crypto whales and trading firms that prefer to keep capital in digital assets. The two platforms have been racing to build out perpetuals since the spring.

What does the Webull deal deliver?

A day before the BitGo news, Webull announced Tuesday that eligible U.S. customers will be able to trade perpetual futures on its platform beginning in November, starting with bitcoin and a handful of other crypto assets.

The contracts will trade on KalshiEX LLC, Kalshi's CFTC-regulated designated contract market, and clear through Kalshi Klear LLC, its derivatives clearing organization. Access opens first to customers already approved for futures trading through existing Webull Futures accounts, with broader availability expected before year-end.

Webull Group President and U.S. CEO Anthony Denier said in the company's release that perpetual futures saw more than $90 trillion in global volume in 2025, and that American investors should be able to access them through a regulated platform.

The distribution math is straightforward. Kalshi gets its contracts in front of a mass-market brokerage base, and Webull gets a crypto derivatives product without building exchange or clearing infrastructure of its own. For a CFTC-regulated venue competing against offshore platforms with looser collateral rules, distribution through regulated intermediaries is the leverage it has.

Where does this fit in Kalshi's buildout?

The two announcements extend a rapid product sequence. Kalshi secured CFTC clearance for the first U.S.-regulated bitcoin perpetual in late May and went live with the contract in early June. It added gold and silver perpetuals in September and a US500 stock index perpetual earlier this month.

The margin-lending product now links that exchange to a custody and credit stack, closing the loop between holding digital assets and trading derivatives against them inside a regulated perimeter — the functional equivalent of what offshore venues offer through crypto-collateralized margin.

What's the legal backdrop?

The expansion comes amid mounting state-level legal pressure. Utah became the latest state to sue Kalshi on Monday over what it alleges is illegal sports gambling, following New York's similar action against Polymarket last month. Those suits target Kalshi's event-contracts business, not its CFTC-cleared derivatives operations, but they land while the company is asking regulators and partners to treat it as the institutional home for U.S. crypto derivatives.

Webull's November launch, and broader availability of the perpetuals before year-end, will be the first real test of whether regulated distribution can pull volume from offshore venues.