Kalshi is now offering a tokenized version of Solana event contract betting, the company told CNBC, marking its clearest bid yet to attract cryptocurrency traders who gravitate toward on-chain platforms like Polymarket.
According to Monday’s report, the setup tokenizes Kalshi’s existing event marketplace covering political and macro data and makes them tradable on Solana.
The report states that the tokenized contracts work in the same way as Kalshi’s traditional products, but on-chain trading adds anonymity and aligns the exchange more closely with Polymarket’s model.
Tokenization is the process of converting real-world assets into blockchain-based tokens.
Support has gone live, with decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols DFlow and Jupiter connecting Kalshi’s off-chain order book to Solana liquidity, CNBC reported.
John Wang, head of cryptocurrency at Kalshi, told CNBC that the move is aimed at tapping deeper pools of capital as prediction market activity accelerates.
Tokenization gives Kalshi access to “billions of dollars of liquidity,” Wang said, allowing developers to build third-party front-ends and helping maintain competitive pricing.
The report noted that Kalshi, founded in 2018, became the first exchange to offer contracts on federally regulated events related to the 2024 U.S. congressional races after a long battle with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
The company currently operates around 3,500 marketplaces and completed a $1 billion funding round last month that valued the company at $11 billion, TechCrunch reported.
CNBC noted that as Polymarket expands into the United States, Kalshi will need more liquidity to keep pace, and local cryptocurrency traders may have unique capabilities to provide this.
Read more: The State of Cryptocurrency: Kalshi and Prediction Markets Face Setbacks