Kalshi Pushes Further Into Crypto With On-Chain Prediction Markets on Solana

Major prediction market firm Kalshi is now offering on-chain event contracts, allowing users to place their predictions on the Solana blockchain, the firm announced on Monday. 

The move allows Kalshi to tap into the finances of the crypto economy and will aggregate its on-chain and off-chain liquidity into one major pool. 

“The ultimate moat for any exchange is liquidity,” Kalshi Head of Crypto John Wang posted on X. 

“Kalshi is the only prediction market in the world that aggregates on-chain and off-chain, US and international into one giant liquidity pool. Tokenization is the endgame: non-custodial, instant, and crypto-native.”

The firm has been powering event contracts on Solana DEX aggregator Jupiter since at least last month and now is leaning on Jupiter and Solana trading infrastructure company DFlow to facilitate its global liquidity pool. 

Kalshi is also looking for more firms to help distribute its events markets, introducing the Kalshi Builders Program with $2 million in grants to those that add on-chain prediction markets to their front end or uniquely build on its event contracts. 

“We’re interested in a wide range of projects including trading bots, analytics dashboards, educational content, market-making tools, data visualizations, mobile apps, browser extensions, and any innovative use cases that leverage Kalshi’s prediction markets,” says the builder’s program FAQ. 

Eligible parties will receive a builder code that tracks volume through their platform, ultimately earning on the volume they facilitate to Kalshi markets. 

Builders can also receive marketing and social media amplification, technical support from Kalshi’s engineering team, among other benefits. 

“Kalshi already has the best product in the industry. Our next chapter is turning our US-focused app into a global platform,” Wang said. “This evolution is only possible through crypto rails. Builders will catalyze power users and deepen usage of novel categories such as weather markets, economic trading, and mentions sniping.” 

Kalshi has been catering to crypto users since before the 2024 election, earning upwards of $20 million in USDC deposits shortly after it opened the deposit option last October. The firm’s valuation recently jumped to $11 billion after a reported $1 billion raise. 

While its key on-chain competitor, Polymarket, earned approval from the CFTC last week to allow U.S. users back on the platform, Kalshi was dealt a setback in the courts last week when a judge said the firm was subject to Nevada Gaming Regulations.