Kalshi’s 15-minute gold markets have overtaken comparable Ether contracts just weeks after launching, recording 542 million contracts during September against 318 million for ETH-linked markets.
Summary
- Gold’s 15-minute Kalshi markets recorded 542 million contracts in September, beating Ether’s 318 million total.
- Estimated September fees reached $5 million for gold, compared with $2.6 million for Ether contracts.
- Bitcoin remained Kalshi’s leading 15-minute market, generating an estimated $60.4 million in September fees overall.
- Fifteen-minute markets generated $20.4 million in seven-day fees through October 5, InGame data showed Tuesday.
- Kalshi said commodities reached $400 million volume within seven months, outpacing crypto’s early growth rate.
Predict Charts estimated that gold generated roughly $5 million in trading fees during the month, almost twice the $2.6 million attributed to 15-minute Ether markets. Bitcoin remained far ahead, with its comparable markets producing an estimated $60.4 million in fees. The figures are estimates derived from Kalshi trade records and should not be treated as company-reported revenue.
The rapid rise came after Kalshi introduced its 15-minute gold series in August. Individual contracts ask traders whether gold will finish above or below a reference level when each 15-minute window closes.
Kalshi gold markets passed Ether within weeks
Gold’s September total was roughly 70% higher than Ether’s 318 million contracts, even though the commodity product had only recently started trading.
Kalshi’s market pages show that the contracts were active by Aug. 7. Each market opens for a short window and settles according to a predetermined reference price. For gold, Kalshi uses Pyth pricing data to determine the outcome.
Pyth had already been selected as the pricing source for Kalshi’s commodity products earlier this year. The arrangement covers markets linked to assets including gold, silver, oil and agricultural commodities.
Ether had a longer head start. Kalshi’s short-duration crypto contracts began expanding in late 2025, with ETH activity rising sharply through 2026. In crypto.news coverage of five-to-15-minute crypto prediction markets, short-term Bitcoin and Ether contracts had already become a large part of crypto trading on prediction platforms by March.
Gold still trails Bitcoin by a wide margin when measured by estimated fees. Predict Charts put Bitcoin’s September figure at $60.4 million, more than 12 times the amount attributed to gold.
Short trades are bringing Kalshi more fees
The gold numbers form part of a much larger jump in trading around markets that settle every 15 minutes.
InGame reported that 15-minute crypto, commodity and financial markets produced $20.4 million of fees during the seven days through Oct. 5. Kalshi collected an estimated $25.1 million from all non-sports markets during the same period, putting short-duration products at roughly 80% of that total.
Their share of trading activity was lower. InGame calculated that 15-minute markets represented 13% of Kalshi’s overall volume during the seven-day period but generated 20% of fees.
Kalshi’s fee structure helps explain the difference. The company states that transaction charges depend on a contract’s expected earnings, while Predict Charts says Kalshi’s effective fee rate peaks around contracts trading close to 50 cents and falls as prices move toward either extreme.
Short-duration price markets frequently trade around even odds because traders are deciding whether an asset will rise or fall over a very brief period. InGame attributed part of the higher fee contribution to that pricing pattern.
Measured across the seven days through Oct. 5, Kalshi collected $3 million or more in daily estimated fees from 15-minute crypto, commodity and financial products on four occasions. The figure reached $3.3 million on one Friday, according to InGame.
Commodities are growing quickly on Kalshi
Gold’s rise follows an expansion of Kalshi’s commodities business during 2026.
Kalshi said on Sept. 8 that commodity markets had reached $400 million in cumulative trading volume within seven months. According to the company, reaching that level took roughly half the time required by its crypto category.
At the same stage in their development, commodity contracts had generated more than four times the volume recorded by Kalshi’s crypto markets, the company said.
The $400 million figure covers Kalshi’s commodity category and should not be confused with the 542 million gold contracts recorded in September. Predict Charts measures market activity in numbers of contracts, while Kalshi’s company announcement used dollar trading volume.
Commodity products now cover several underlying markets. Gold is joined by silver, oil, copper and agricultural products, with outcomes determined from specified external pricing sources.
Kalshi has been expanding other financial products at the same time. Its crypto perpetual futures business crossed $5.5 billion in volume within two weeks of launch earlier this year, as detailed in crypto.news coverage of Kalshi’s push beyond crypto perpetuals.
The company later faced questions about unusually high Ether perpetual volume, which it said came from liquidity programs and involved a different product from its prediction-market contracts. The distinction is important because September’s 318 million Ether figure in the gold comparison refers to 15-minute event contracts, not ETH perpetual futures.
Fifteen-minute markets now drive non-sports activity
Kalshi’s non-sports business has grown alongside the short-duration products.
InGame found that non-sports markets accounted for more than 25% of Kalshi’s estimated fee revenue in September. For 2026 as a whole through Oct. 6, their share stood at 19.2%, compared with 11% in 2025.
Crypto has remained the largest contributor within the 15-minute group. Its daily fee total was below $10,000 in January but rose past $2 million per day during September, according to the same analysis.
Gold’s rapid climb shows that the format has moved into commodities as well. A Sept. 25 Kalshi gold contract retrieved from the exchange recorded more than $386,000 in volume during a single 15-minute market, while other individual gold windows have posted tens of thousands of dollars in activity.
Kalshi’s overall business has been growing at the same time. As crypto.news reported on its latest fundraising talks, the company entered discussions for roughly $1 billion of fresh capital at a valuation close to $40 billion after securing a $22 billion valuation earlier in 2026. The talks had not been confirmed as a completed financing round as of the latest report.
For commodities, Kalshi has another product expansion pending. The company said in September that it had filed for perpetual contracts tied to gold, silver and platinum and planned to launch them, but it did not provide a firm release date.
