Kalshi's 15-Minute Gold Markets Overtake Ether in September

Published October 7, 2026, 19:00 UTC. Based on data from Predict Charts and reporting by Cointelegraph and crypto.news.

Gold just beat Ether on Kalshi. The exchange's 15-minute gold contracts recorded 542 million trades in September 2026, roughly 70% more than the 318 million recorded for 15-minute Ether contracts in the same month, according to Predict Charts data cited by Cointelegraph. The gold markets, launched only in August, generated about $5 million in estimated fees for the month, nearly double the $2.6 million attributed to Ether contracts.

Bitcoin stayed far ahead of both. Its 15-minute contracts generated an estimated $60.4 million in fees during September, more than 12 times the gold total, according to the same Predict Charts estimates. The figures are derived from Kalshi trade records and are not company-reported revenue, crypto.news noted.

The 542 million figure

Kalshi's 15-minute gold contracts let traders bet on whether gold will finish above or below a reference price when each 15-minute window closes, crypto.news reported. The product was active on Kalshi's market pages by Aug. 7 and settles using Pyth pricing data, which Kalshi selected earlier in 2026 as the pricing source for its gold, silver, oil and agricultural commodity markets.

Ether had the longer head start. Kalshi's short-duration crypto contracts began expanding in late 2025, with Ether's 15-minute volume growing from 6.1 million contracts in January to 233 million in July 2026, Cointelegraph reported. September's climb to 318 million still left Ether roughly 224 million contracts behind gold.

The 318 million Ether figure covers 15-minute event contracts only. It should not be confused with Kalshi's Ether perpetual futures, which drew scrutiny earlier this month after roughly $5 billion in monthly ETH perp volume was linked to liquidity-incentive programs, according to crypto.news.

Why short durations pay more

The gold numbers sit inside a much larger surge in 15-minute trading. An InGame analysis published Oct. 6 found that 15-minute crypto, commodity and financial markets generated $20.4 million in fees during the seven days through Oct. 5, accounting for 80% of Kalshi's non-sports fees in that period, Cointelegraph reported.

Short-duration markets punched above their weight: they represented 13% of Kalshi's trading volume during that week but generated 20% of its fees, according to InGame. Kalshi's fee formula charges higher fees, as a share of volume, on contracts trading near 50/50 odds, InGame journalist Daniel O'Boyle wrote, and 15-minute price markets frequently trade around even odds because they ask whether an asset will rise or fall over a very short window.

Commodities beat crypto's early pace

Gold's rise follows a fast expansion of Kalshi's commodities business. Kalshi said on Sept. 8 that commodity markets had reached $400 million in cumulative trading volume within seven months, more than four times the volume its crypto markets had generated at the same stage of their development, Cointelegraph reported. "Crypto markets demonstrated the potential for new categories on Kalshi to scale from tens of millions to billions in monthly volume," the company said.

Kalshi has more commodity products pending. The company said in September that it had filed for perpetual contracts tied to gold, silver and platinum, but did not provide a firm release date, crypto.news reported. Separately, Reuters reported the company entered talks for roughly $1 billion of fresh capital at a valuation near $40 billion; the talks had not been confirmed as a completed financing round as of Oct. 7.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• Kalshi, commodities trading announcement (Sept. 8, 2026), primary source
• Cointelegraph, Kalshi's 15-Minute Gold Markets Overtake Ether (Oct. 7, 2026)
• crypto.news, Kalshi gold trading beats Ether just weeks after launch (Oct. 7, 2026)