Traders are turning to Kalshi’s new stock perpetual futures to take leveraged positions on Nvidia, SpaceX and Micron, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, with Kalshi offering up to 4.6x leverage on Nvidia positions. Bloomberg wrote that volume on Kalshi’s Nvidia perps jumped to over $100 million in the past 24 hours on Thursday, boosted by volatility around the change of chief executive.
Kalshi’s own market data puts a total on it. Its public perps API, which we read at 16:07 UTC on 15 November, lists $404.6 million of lifetime notional volume on the Nvidia perp since it began trading on 5 November, and $5.68 million of open interest. That is about 38% of the $15.06 million of open interest across Kalshi’s 94 stock perps, by our arithmetic.
Business Pill · Concentration Explained
A one-minute explainer of concentration: when a few big pieces make up most of a total. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Kalshi, perps or Nvidia.
The key insight: As we read Kalshi’s data, the new leverage is concentrated: the Nvidia perp holds about 38% of open interest across 94 stock perps by our arithmetic, so one stock’s volatility around its chief executive change is doing much of the work, while lifetime volume is still about 0.5% of one day’s Nvidia share trading.
Perpetual futures tied to stock prices began trading on Kalshi on 5 November, Bloomberg reported, the same day technology stocks had their worst selloff since 2020. The contracts give exposure to a share price without owning the shares and have no expiration date. Kalshi began with perps on 50 large stocks, after earlier contracts on commodities and crypto tokens.
Bloomberg wrote that Micron perp volume rose above $100 million on 9 November and that SpaceX traded as much as $88 million in a single day. Kalshi offers up to 4.6x leverage on Nvidia and 3.5x on Micron and SpaceX, according to the report, and $100 in cash gives a user $458.81 in buying power. Bloomberg said the perps have drawn interest from both retail customers and hedge funds.
The report also set the scale. On 9 November about $78 billion of Nvidia shares changed hands, Bloomberg wrote, and listed options volumes had a notional value of around $125 billion. Noel Kimmel, president of brokerage Ripple Prime, told Bloomberg: “This is not a fad in my view, and I think you’re going to see continued proliferation and increase in pickup across different types of asset managers”.
Open interest notional value in Kalshi’s Nvidia stock perp at the end of each daily candle (midnight ET), 5 to 13 November 2026, from Kalshi’s public perps API read at 16:07 UTC on 15 November. The 8 November bar is the Sunday-evening session. The 12.6x rise is our arithmetic; these are market data, not a forecast.
What Kalshi’s Own Data Shows
Kalshi’s public perps API lists 94 markets under equities. Across them it reports $2,110.8 million of lifetime notional volume and $15.06 million of open interest. Nvidia leads both: $404.6 million of volume, about a fifth of the total, and $5.68 million of open interest, about 38%, by our arithmetic. SpaceX follows with $313.2 million of volume and Micron with $304.4 million.
The Nvidia perp’s daily candles show the build. Open interest ended the 5 November launch session at $0.451 million and the 13 November session at $5.678 million, 12.6 times higher by our arithmetic. The eight daily candles add up to the $404.6 million lifetime figure; the largest, for 12 November, carried $86.0 million. These are market data from Kalshi’s API, not a forecast.
The API also lists leverage estimates that differ by side. For a $1,000 position it shows 4.66x for a long Nvidia position and 4.06x for a short one; for SpaceX it shows 3.59x long and 2.88x short. Kalshi’s Help Center says the leverage available depends on the stock and the position size.
Set against the shares, the perp is still small. Its $404.6 million of lifetime volume is about 0.5% of the roughly $78 billion of Nvidia shares Bloomberg says traded on 9 November alone, by our arithmetic. Nvidia’s closes around the chief executive change are in our piece on the $262 billion of value lost and our piece on what the drop meant for an index fund.
How Kalshi’s Stock Perps Work
Each contract represents 0.02 shares, so 50 contracts give the price exposure of one share, Kalshi’s Help Center says. Funding is paid once a day at 4:00 PM ET, there is no expiration, and positions clear through Kalshi Klear LLC. Stock perps follow a set trading schedule with regular closures, not 24/7; the API listed the next open as 6:00 p.m. ET on Sunday.
The leverage is the draw and the risk. Kalshi’s learn page says that at 5x it takes roughly a 20% move against a position before it is closed automatically. Its Help Center adds: “In exceptional market conditions, losses can exceed the margin you posted”. The Nvidia perp’s closing mark fell from $3.7094 a contract on 5 November to $3.2338 on 13 November, or $185.47 to $161.69 per share equivalent, by our arithmetic.
For comparison, Regulation T sets the initial margin on a margin stock at 50 percent of its market value, so $100 of cash buys $200 of shares. Bloomberg’s $458.81 of buying power per $100 on Kalshi’s Nvidia perp is 2.3 times that, by our arithmetic. Bloomberg also reported that CME Group’s single stock futures, listed in late July, offer more than six times leverage on more than 50 stocks including Nvidia, SpaceX and Micron.
The Fight Over What a Perp Is
Kalshi’s announcement says leverage levels for all its products are approved under strict CFTC regulation and are significantly lower than offshore perp products. Udesh Jha, Kalshi’s chief risk officer, said in a 28 October presentation, as Bloomberg reported: “We are governed by CFTC standards”.
Incumbents disagree on the legal form. CME Group’s lawsuit against the CFTC argues perps are swaps, not futures, Bloomberg reported, and Cboe Global Markets and Citadel Securities are also suing the CFTC. CME chief executive Terry Duffy said on 4 November: “I really believe it’s 2007 for retail”. Rob Hocking, Cboe’s global head of derivatives, told Bloomberg: “We’re just in the Wild West”.
As we read the API, the long side is offered more leverage than the short side on Nvidia (4.66x against 4.06x for a $1,000 position) and on SpaceX (3.59x against 2.88x).
As we read Bloomberg’s report, the dispute is about the legal form as much as the risk: CME argues perps are swaps, while Kalshi says its leverage is approved under CFTC regulation.
CME Group chief executive Terry Duffy, 4 November 2026, as reported by Bloomberg
“I really believe it’s 2007 for retail”
Three Implications
FOR RETAIL TRADERS Kalshi’s Help Center says that in exceptional market conditions losses can exceed the margin posted, and its learn page says that at 5x a roughly 20% move closes a position.
FOR NVIDIA HOLDERS Kalshi’s API shows $5.68 million of Nvidia perp open interest against $404.6 million of lifetime volume since 5 November; Nvidia reports results on 17 November.
FOR EXCHANGES AND REGULATORS Bloomberg reported that CME Group, Cboe Global Markets and Citadel Securities are suing the CFTC over whether equity perps are futures or swaps.
The framework says: “The bubble can pop on the short cycle while the supercycle continues uninterrupted on the long cycle”.
As we read it, leveraged stock perps on Nvidia are a short-cycle instrument: the API shows open interest up 12.6x in eight sessions, a measure of trading appetite rather than of AI demand; the framework does not discuss Kalshi or perps.
Exposure bought with $100 of cash. Kalshi and CME leverage as reported by Bloomberg on 15 November 2026; the $200 applies Regulation T’s 50 percent initial margin. The dollar conversions and the 2.3x ratio are our arithmetic.
What Is Not Established
Who holds the positions: Bloomberg says retail customers and hedge funds are both interested, and Kalshi’s public API reports totals, not who trades. Bloomberg’s over $100 million for Nvidia covers a rolling 24 hours; the daily candles we read are cut at midnight ET, so the two figures cover different windows.
Leverage is not fixed. The API’s figures are labelled estimates and vary by position size and side, and Kalshi says they may change. The legal status of equity perps is before the courts in the CME and Cboe-Citadel Securities cases. FourWeekMBA did not contact Kalshi for this piece.
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Bloomberg reported that traders are using Kalshi’s stock perps for leveraged positions on Nvidia, SpaceX and Micron, with up to 4.6x leverage on Nvidia. Kalshi’s own API shows $404.6 million of lifetime volume on the Nvidia perp since 5 November and $5.68 million of open interest, about 38% of the stock-perp total by our arithmetic, still about 0.5% of one day’s Nvidia share trading.
A note on sourcing. We read Bloomberg’s report of 15 November 2026 in full and keep its attribution for the trading, leverage, scale and legal-fight details. Contract terms come from Kalshi’s announcement, its Help Center article on single stock perpetual futures and its Invest learn page. Volumes, open interest, daily candles, leverage estimates and closing marks come from Kalshi’s public perps API, which we read at 16:07 UTC on 15 November while stock perps were closed for the weekend; they are market data, not a forecast.
The 50 percent margin figure is from Regulation T (12 CFR 220.12). Shares of totals, the 12.6x rise, the 0.5% comparison, the 2.3x buying-power ratio and per-share equivalents are our arithmetic. FourWeekMBA did not contact Kalshi for this piece.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
