Kalshi takes a perp walk

If you’ve made it this far in life without knowing what “tokenization” or “perps” means, then we’re jealous. Unfortunately, now might be the time to tune in.

The world of investing, prediction markets, and crypto are all converging into an unholy trinity as everything turns into one giant casino. Perpetual futures, aka “perps,” are a major part of that transformation.

Perps are essentially futures contracts that never expire, but don’t actually give investors ownership of the underlying asset they track. Kalshi first got approval to list perps tied to digital assets back in May, and since then, $44 billion in volume of perp contracts have been traded on the site, according to CNBC. Today, Kalshi won approval from the CFTC to roll out perps tied to gold and silver, arguing that the resurgence of inflation is making precious metals a more relevant investment than ever.

But it isn’t just prediction markets ushering in a new era of finance. Traditional stock exchanges, which have realized that risk-hungry retail traders are a growing customer base, are trying to jump on the crypto bandwagon as well.

Just today, the venture capital wing of the Nasdaq invested $100 million in the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken to launch tokenized equities. Tokenization is also a kind of investment product built around an asset—but doesn’t actually give investors ownership of the stock. The two companies said investors will be able to start trading tokenized stocks in 2027.

“The next era of market evolution will be defined by how efficiently and seamlessly capital and assets move across the financial system with durable liquidity,” explained Nasdaq President Tal Cohen.

Imitation is the sincerest form of…making money?

There’s one major catch when it comes to perps and tokenized stocks: The companies that these financial products are based on may not approve.

Last week, AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron released the following passive aggressive statement in response to Robinhood’s move to tokenize AMC stock: “I find this practice to be contemptible, outrageous, disgusting, detestable, inexcusable, vile. How can it possibly be legal? We have no connection to this at all, and do not condone it in any way.”

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev shot back, arguing that companies don’t actually have the right to decide what financial products are built around their stock. “Issuers should have control and do have control over the rights and obligations of the stock that they issue, but that doesn’t mean they control everything about it,” he said.

Old school investors will likely bristle at these newfangled imitations of stocks. But to perp proponents, if it walks like a stock and talks like a stock, well, you know the rest.—LB