Polymarket Launches High-Leverage Perpetual Contract Trading "Perps"
Prediction market platform Polymarket has officially entered the perpetual futures ("perps") trading business, further expanding its financial derivatives offerings. This move follows its main competitor Kalshi – reports indicate that the regulated US prediction market platform Kalshi plans to launch cryptocurrency trading products including perpetual contracts. Perpetual futures are futures contracts with no fixed expiration date, allowing investors to hold leveraged positions for extended periods as long as their account margin is sufficient, and to close positions at any time.
Polymarket has not yet explicitly stated whether its newly launched perpetual products will include cryptocurrencies, but the platform has always been friendly to crypto assets. Built on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains, trading is primarily denominated in the stablecoin USDC, and Polymarket's rapid growth in 2024 has largely been driven by crypto traders. If its perpetual contracts ultimately include crypto varieties, Polymarket will be more directly comparable to platforms like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Kraken, which have entered the prediction market business over the past year, further competing for young, risk-seeking retail users.
The availability of these international perpetual contract products remains limited within the United States, but they were extremely popular among global crypto traders in the early stages of the crypto industry, seen as a way to circumvent traditional financial restrictions. Competition among crypto exchanges surrounding perpetual contracts has intensified over the past year: approximately a year ago, Coinbase acquired crypto derivatives exchange Deribit for $2.9 billion, the largest M&A deal to date in the crypto industry, enabling Coinbase to directly challenge giants like Binance in the international derivatives market. According to CoinGecko data, the annual trading volume of perpetual contracts on leading centralized crypto exchanges globally reached $86.2 trillion in 2025, a year-on-year increase of approximately 47%.
Compared to spot trading, perpetual contracts can still bring considerable and sustained trading volume to platforms even when coin prices are stagnant or overall trading activity is weak. As current cryptocurrency prices are generally stalled and market trading volume is cooling, Polymarket and Kalshi's choice to enter the perpetual contract arena is seen as an attempt to unlock new growth points during a downturn in crypto market sentiment. For traders, perpetual contracts can not only be used to amplify speculation on short-term price fluctuations, but also to hedge existing holdings and flexibly use leverage to take both long and short positions, providing operational space regardless of whether the market rises or falls.
Industry insiders point out that while perpetual contracts have advantages in enhancing liquidity and enriching trading strategies, their high leverage characteristics also mean higher risk, and place more stringent demands on margin management and risk control capabilities. Currently, Polymarket has not made any further comments on the new business, and Kalshi declined to comment.