The Rollup Founder Andy: Kalshi May Face Major Trouble
The founder of crypto media The Rollup, Andy, stated after sharing quantitative analyst Beni's latest "smoking gun" evidence regarding Kalshi's trading volume fraud that if the related accusations are confirmed, Kalshi will "get into big trouble." He speculated that this incident might prompt the CFTC to push for the full on-chain deployment of crypto perpetual contracts, establishing verifiability as a new industry standard.
Beni released additional revelations that night (marked as "Part 1.5"), claiming that a single $5,500 transaction found in Kalshi's Ethereum perpetual contracts, which was identical in amount, accounted for as much as 58% of its total trading volume over four consecutive trading days. He referred to this repeated trading pattern as "conclusive evidence of Kalshi's fabricated perpetual contract trading volume."
In his repost, Andy emphasized that "verifiability" is the core value proposition of the crypto industry—if the trading volume data of a CFTC-regulated licensed exchange cannot be independently verified, it fundamentally undermines its trust advantage over on-chain native derivatives protocols, potentially forcing regulators to require similar contracts to be deployed on publicly verifiable blockchains.
Previously, Kalshi's crypto business head IcoBeast.eth responded that part of the dispute stems from a misinterpretation of the Artemis chart's statistical criteria—the chart reflects the share of the prediction market rather than perpetual contract data, and Kalshi has not provided rebates for its perpetual contract business, but has yet to respond specifically to Beni's latest disclosure of the $5,500 repeated transaction phenomenon.
As of now, there are no CFTC enforcement records or third-party audits confirming Kalshi's volume manipulation behavior, but the timing of the controversy is quite delicate—Kalshi is currently pushing to raise its valuation from $22 billion to $40 billion in a new round of financing, with crypto perpetual contracts being one of its core growth stories that distinguishes it from traditional prediction market platforms.
In terms of market mechanisms, if more influential opinion leaders within the industry continue to amplify doubts, it may accelerate the formation of a market consensus that "off-chain exchange data is unreliable, on-chain protocols are more trustworthy," benefiting users and liquidity migration to on-chain perpetual contract protocols like dYdX and Hyperliquid. It may also compel the CFTC to directly embed on-chain verifiability requirements in new regulatory rules, reshaping the technical architecture standards of all licensed derivatives exchanges.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The Rollup is a highly influential media and podcast brand in the crypto industry, focusing on DeFi, on-chain infrastructure, and regulatory dynamics. Andy, as the founder, has often played the role of an "amplifier" in market controversies, transforming original findings from on-chain analysts into broader industry discussion topics; this repost of Beni's accusations continues his consistent focus on the reporting stance of "on-chain verifiability."
If doubts continue to escalate and prompt regulatory shifts, funds may flow from licensed exchanges that rely on off-chain matching and opaque data to on-chain native perpetual contract protocols like dYdX and Hyperliquid, which have a natural advantage in the "verifiability" narrative due to publicly verifiable on-chain settlement records. Kalshi is currently in a critical window for financing at a $40 billion valuation, and the capital cost of reputational risk may far exceed simple compliance fines.
This scenario is reminiscent of the market's collective shift towards the "verify, don't trust" principle after the FTX collapse in 2022—at that time, centralized exchanges faced a trust crisis due to opaque accounts, while on-chain protocols seized the opportunity to attract significant liquidity. The current crypto perpetual contract industry is at a critical stage where "compliance licensing" and "on-chain transparency" paradigms are competing, with no clear winner yet.
Essentially, this represents a regulatory change—if the CFTC ultimately leans towards requiring regulated perpetual contract products to adopt on-chain settlement architectures due to data credibility disputes, it would mark a structural shift in regulatory logic from "reviewing the issuer's qualifications" to "reviewing the verifiability of underlying technology." The traditional compliance advantages of licensed exchanges may be partially offset, with their competitive position under the new regulatory framework determined by the transparency of their technical architecture.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Trust is the cost of off-chain; verification is the free lunch on-chain.
Regulators never punish fraud itself, only the discovery of fraud.
The speed of reputational collapse is always faster than the speed of valuation reconstruction.