Kalshi is now offering tokenized versions of its event-contract bets on Solana, the company told CNBC, marking its clearest bid yet to attract crypto traders who have retreated to on-chain platforms like Polymarket.
The setup tokenizes Kalshi’s existing event markets, spanning politics to macro data, and makes them tradable on Solana, according to Monday’s report.
Tokenized contracts work similarly to Kalshi’s traditional products, but on-chain trading adds anonymity and aligns the exchange more closely with Polymarket’s model, the report said.
Tokenization is the process by which real-world assets are converted into blockchain-based tokens.
Support is already live, according to CNBC, with decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols DFlow and Jupiter connecting Kalshi’s off-chain order book to Solana’s liquidity.
Kalshi’s head of crypto, John Wang, told CNBC that the move is designed to tap into deeper pools of capital as prediction market activity accelerates.
Tokenization gives Kalshi access to “billions of dollars of liquidity,” lets developers build third-party front ends and helps maintain competitive pricing, Wang said.
Founded in 2018, Kalshi became the first exchange to offer federally regulated event contracts tied to 2024 US congressional races after a protracted battle with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the report noted.
The firm now operates about 3,500 markets and closed a $1 billion funding round last month that valued the company at $11 billion, according to a TechCrunch report.
As Polymarket pushes into the US, CNBC noted that Kalshi will need more liquidity to keep up, something crypto-native traders may be uniquely equipped to provide.
Read more: State of Crypto: Kalshi and the Prediction Markets Face a Setback
