Breaking news! A new player from Wall Street has entered the gold futures market—has the 24-hour trading era arrived? How should retail investors respond?

Have you heard? Kalshi, a U.S. prediction market platform, isn’t content with betting on elections and the weather—it has set its sights on real money.

The company has officially submitted an application to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), planning to launch perpetual futures contracts for gold, silver, and platinum. Under the process, the CFTC has 45 days to decide whether to approve or reject the request.

This sounds like crypto-style stuff, right? Yes—perpetual futures were first popularized in digital asset markets like BTC and ETH. With no expiration dates, you can use leverage and get the best of both long and short sides. But now, traditional asset markets are starting to test the waters too.

Kalshi’s proposed precious-metals perpetual futures would trade five days a week, 24 hours a day, in line with traditional precious-metals markets, rather than running nonstop all year like crypto contracts. However, Chief Risk Officer Udesh Jha said it’s not ruled out that they may extend trading hours later.

Why do this all of a sudden? The underlying logic is that demand has changed. In the past, these derivatives were mainly active in crypto markets, but as geopolitical conflicts escalated, demand for trading traditional assets surged. Think back to the Iran war—some retail traders used similar tools to trade oil prices because when traditional futures markets were closed, they couldn’t operate, and perpetual contracts could fill that gap.

Competition is also heating up. Emerging platforms like Hyperliquid have already launched contracts tied to real-world assets such as gold and crude oil, pressuring established exchanges to catch up. The CME Group plans to officially launch 7x24-hour trading of 1-ounce gold futures on July 26.

But to be honest, gold itself hasn’t had a great run recently. Since gold prices hit a record high at the end of January this year, the maximum decline has at one point reached about 25%. The reason is simple—market expectations that the Fed will keep interest rates high have crushed gold, an interest-free asset.

That said, many institutions believe gold has already been oversold and rebound opportunities are forming. Zweig-DiMenna, a U.S. research institution, noted that China’s central bank has resumed large-scale buying of gold. Based on People’s Bank of China data, official gold reserves increased by 40 tons in the first half of 2026, reaching 75.44 million ounces (about 2,346.45 tons) as of the end of June. This marks the 20th consecutive month of net purchases. In particular, China added 15 tons in June alone, the largest monthly amount of gold bought since October 2023.

Zweig-DiMenna also mentioned a detail: the current gold price is already about 10% below the 200-day moving average. Historically, similar situations have triggered clear rebounds after 1999 and following 2022. Of course, the cases in 1981 and 2013 also show that after overselling, gold can still keep falling—the key is the macro environment.

Morgan Stanley’s commodities team is relatively optimistic, saying its year-end gold price target is $4,450 per ounce. The core logic is that global central banks continue buying gold. However, at present, central bank gold purchases are being partially offset by outflows from gold ETFs. Last year, ETF investors contributed about one-fifth of gold demand, but enthusiasm has cooled due to easing geopolitical risk, changes in interest-rate expectations, and the gold price pullback.

Whether gold can truly take off in the future ultimately depends on the Fed. If inflation keeps cooling and the Fed keeps rates unchanged or even begins cutting, declining real rates would once again boost gold’s attractiveness and drive ETF inflows back.

One-sentence summary: gold’s recent pullback hasn’t broken the long-term logic. Global central banks are buying, demand for hedging is there, and new trading tools keep emerging. Kalshi’s push for perpetual precious-metals futures is just a snapshot of traditional asset trading evolving toward more flexible, higher-frequency directions.

For us retail investors, this could mean lower barriers to investing in gold and more ways to play—but the damage caused by leverage also shouldn’t be underestimated. Do you want to be the hunter, or the hunted?

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