A land grab on perpetual futures, one of the biggest and riskiest parts of the world of crypto trading, is reportedly underway in the United States, and prediction markets Calci and Polymarket reportedly want a piece of it.
Perpetual futures, better known to users as “purps,” are futures contracts with no expiration date and have experienced explosive growth since President Trump returned to office. Until then, Perps that could offer up to 100x leverage didn’t really exist in the US. This was a big reason why offshore exchanges like Binance and the now-defunct FTX grew to be so dominant.
According to CoinGecko, Purp currently accounts for over 70% of all trading volume on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. According to CryptoQuant data, PERPS trading volume in 2025 rose to a nominal $61.7 trillion, an increase of 29% from 2024. In contrast, the spot trading volume of virtual currencies will reach a nominal $18.6 trillion in 2025, an increase of 9% from the previous year.
The convergence of prediction markets and leveraged trading could reshape the way Americans trade based on real-world events. We will also see prediction markets compete directly with platforms such as: robin hood and coinbaseAnd skeptics have begun to wonder if the combination of prediction markets and leveraged products will increase volatility and tie cryptocurrencies more closely to mainstream finance.
But for existing crypto platforms themselves, analysts have largely downplayed the potential risks posed by challenges from prediction markets.
natural elongation
“We don’t think this is an imminent threat,” said ClearStreet analyst Owen Lau. “This is a natural product extension for Polymarket and Kalshi’s existing customers. It would be hard to ask the guys at Coinbase, Binance and Robinhood to abandon their existing platforms and go (to them).”
Mizuho’s Dan Dolev said the move away from prediction markets was aimed more at preventing risk than consolidating ground.
“Ultimately…Robinhood will want to do it themselves,” Dolev said. “So this is more of a defensive move than an offensive move.”
Last year, Robinhood launched its Prediction Markets Hub through a partnership with Karshi, making it the platform’s fastest-growing product line by revenue, with the company saying 11 billion contracts will be traded by more than 1 million customers in 2025. Coinbase began its partnership with Kalshi in January of this year.
Dorev said this prediction and the overlap in the crypto market’s user base is “huge” and that Robinhood’s entry would be a “home run idea.” Crypto.com, Coinbase, and Robinhood are all members of the newly formed Coalition for Prediction Markets lobby group.
“Prediction market providers will ultimately face the risk of disruption,” he said.
US puts pressure on land criminals
If purpurs trading becomes more widespread in the U.S., it could lead to more volatility in certain assets, Lau said.
“Because of the leverage, because of the risk of this contract, we’ve never seen a criminal contract before in the United States,” he said.
Criminals outside the United States use something called an automated deleveraging system. This means that exchanges automatically liquidate traders’ positions, causing a massive liquidation cascade and a significant daily drawdown in crypto prices. Perhaps that’s why U.S. regulators have so far been reluctant to allow contracts to be traded domestically, Lau added.
The success of the planned expansion will largely depend on how the product is structured: how contracts are priced, settled, margined and traders are incentivized. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced earlier this year that it is working to domesticate “true perpetual derivatives.”
“The previous administration failed to create a pathway for these markets to exist domestically,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said in prepared remarks at the time. “Under my leadership, the CFTC will use the tools at its disposal to domestically sell perpetual products and other new derivative products, allowing them to thrive in both centralized and decentralized markets, subject to appropriate safeguards.”
At the same time, prediction markets are facing increased scrutiny following recent incidents in which bettors have allegedly misused insider information or manipulated underlying data, including traders accused of betting on undisclosed events and tampering with real-world inputs such as weather sensors to secure huge profits. Adding cryptocurrencies to the mix is sure to thwart these companies’ efforts by subjecting them to additional scrutiny before expanding their involvement.
However, if successful, the big question will be whether these contracts popularized in cryptocurrencies will expand to other asset classes as well. Lau said if the CFTC and U.S. businesses can continue to block the use of automatic deleveraging in retail trading, that could be a logical next step.
“(Perps) is about crypto, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see if they want to go in that direction after they launch Perps with crypto,” he said. “If you take this concept to the S&P 500, energy, coffee, and Apple stocks, it becomes a more interesting phenomenon.”
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalsi have a commercial relationship that includes a minority investment in CNBC.
