Kalshi raises $1 billion in funding, prediction market leader valued at $22 billion, attracting Wall Street attention

US prediction market platform Kalshi completes $1 billion in funding, with a valuation reaching $22 billion. The platform has obtained regulatory approval from the CFTC and is committed to driving institutionalization and global expansion.

Kalshi completes $1 billion in funding, valuation soars to $22 billion

US prediction market platform Kalshi has officially confirmed the completion of a new round of $1 billion in funding, with the company’s valuation jumping to $22 billion, making it one of the most closely watched startups in recent years across fintech and the crypto market. This funding round also signals that prediction markets are formally moving from a niche speculative tool toward becoming more visible in mainstream financial capital.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the funds will mainly be used for institutional market expansion, regulatory compliance, global market deployment, and building larger-scale trading and clearing infrastructure. Kalshi has also explicitly stated that the core goal of the next phase is to attract more traditional financial institutions and professional investors into the prediction market ecosystem.

Kalshi is currently one of the few legitimate event trading platforms in the US that has obtained regulatory approval from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Users can place bets on elections, interest rates, inflation, wars, sports events, and even economic data. In essence, the platform is not a traditional cryptocurrency exchange, but more like a “probability trading market.”

After this funding news emerged, it also once again brought market attention to the trend of “financializing prediction markets.” Event trading, which was previously viewed as entertainment or gambling, is now gradually evolving into a new tool for information pricing.

From Trump elections to Federal Reserve interest rates, prediction markets start influencing Wall Street

Over the past year, as uncertainty around the US presidential election, the war in the Middle East, and Federal Reserve policy has increased, the influence of prediction markets has expanded rapidly. Many investment institutions have begun incorporating data from Kalshi and Polymarket into their trading and risk assessment models. Especially during the US presidential election period, the win probabilities for Trump and Democratic candidates on Kalshi sometimes reflected market sentiment faster than traditional polls, leading prediction markets to increasingly be seen as a “real-time public opinion and risk pricing system.”

Unlike traditional financial markets, the core logic of prediction markets is not corporate earnings reports, but “the probability that an event will occur.” Investors buy and sell contracts to directly bet on future events. The closer the price is to 100%, the more the market believes the event is likely to happen.

This model has also attracted many quantitative trading teams and institutional research funds. Some Wall Street funds have even started using prediction market data to position themselves early in the stock, energy, and bond markets. Market analysts say that Kalshi’s valuation surge essentially reflects a repricing of “information trading” in capital markets. As AI and social media make information spread faster and faster, platforms that can reflect market sentiment in real time are beginning to have new financial value.

Kalshi pushes for institutionalization, trying to distance itself from crypto prediction markets

It is worth noting that Kalshi’s direction after this round of funding is clearly diverging from native crypto prediction markets. While Polymarket has very high traffic and discussion, it still cannot legally serve US users due to regulatory issues. By contrast, Kalshi is positioning itself along a fully compliant path and is actively aligning with the traditional financial system.

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour has repeatedly emphasized that prediction markets in the future should not be just speculative tools, but should become “information infrastructure” within financial markets. This is also why Kalshi has been actively building clearing systems, risk control frameworks, and institutional APIs in recent years.

According to reports, Kalshi may further roll out institutional-grade products in the future, including large-scale macroeconomic event markets, corporate earnings prediction markets, and more contracts tied to interest rates, inflation, and geopolitical events. To some extent, Kalshi is trying to repackage the act of “betting on the future” into a legitimate asset category within financial markets.

As the prediction market boom heats up, regulation and moral controversies rise in parallel

However, the rapid rise of prediction markets has also triggered regulatory and ethical controversies. Recently, the US saw a case in which active-duty military personnel used classified information to profit from betting on Venezuela’s military actions in prediction markets, again bringing the issue of insider trading and national security risks into focus. Some US lawmakers have even started discussing whether to restrict government officials and certain individuals from participating in event market trading. In addition, as prediction markets begin to involve wars, assassinations, pandemics, and political events, outsiders have questioned whether markets might end up influencing the real world.

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But supporters believe the real value of prediction markets lies in their ability to reflect collective cognition faster than polls, media, and analysts. Some scholars even think that in the future, government and corporate decision-making could reference prediction market prices as risk indicators.

Now that Kalshi has achieved a $22 billion valuation, it also means Wall Street has started betting on one thing: that the most valuable asset in the future may not be stocks, but the “ability to price probabilities of the future.”