Bitcoin perpetual futures on Kalshi are showing a pattern that is hard to miss: the same dollar amounts keep appearing, again and again.
A CoinDesk analysis of the exchange’s public trade records found that a handful of repeating trade sizes represented more than half of the sampled value on both bitcoin and ether perpetual markets. In ether, trades clustered around $5,499 accounted for 57% of the $13.5 million analyzed between Sept. 17 and Sept. 20. On bitcoin, recurring trades of roughly $2,500 and $5,000 made up 54% of $8.5 million in sampled activity.
The strange part is not simply that these amounts recur. It is that the dollar value stays remarkably steady even as the number of contracts changes with the underlying crypto price.
That behavior points toward automation rather than a crowd of traders independently choosing the same numbers.
Why Bitcoin perpetual futures are attracting attention
Volume is one of the first signals traders use to understand whether a market is active and liquid. More trading can suggest that plenty of buyers and sellers are available, potentially making it easier to enter or exit without moving the price significantly.
But volume does not tell you how many participants are behind it.
Kalshi’s public records showed a large share of trading coming from a narrow set of recurring dollar targets. That makes the source of the activity more important, especially for a relatively new crypto derivatives venue.
The pattern was not limited to the four-day period CoinDesk examined.
Across 43 of 46 one-hour samples collected between June 19 and Sept. 20, ether trades repeatedly gathered around specific dollar amounts. The dominant trade size represented about 45% of value across those samples and more than half of the value on 15 dates.
As ether’s price moved from roughly $1,700 to $2,500 between June and September, the number of contracts needed to hit the target changed. A July trade in one cluster involved about 2,800 contracts. By September, reaching a similar dollar amount required roughly 2,200.
The dollar figure moved over time, too. Earlier samples centered on approximately $4,999, while trades near $9,999 represented 72% of sampled value on June 28. A $3,999 target appeared on Aug. 10, followed by roughly $4,499 on Aug. 18 and $5,499 on Aug. 24.
By June 19, trades worth almost exactly $4,999 represented 37% of the ether contract value CoinDesk sampled during that hour.
Bitcoin showed a similarly mechanical rhythm.
Two recurring trade sizes tended to move together as bitcoin’s price changed, with the larger amount staying close to twice the smaller one. In nine of 22 samples containing both sizes, the relationship was exactly two-to-one. In the remaining 13, the larger trade was one contract above double the smaller amount, a difference consistent with rounding.
When bitcoin was trading around $76,300, for example, the pair consisted of 327 and 655 contracts. By Monday, the figures were 307 and 614.
The implication is fairly simple: the system appears to have been targeting dollar values and adjusting contract counts as prices moved.
That is consistent with what traders call “clips” — predetermined trade sizes used by automated strategies.
Bitcoin perpetual futures are not the only part of the story. Kalshi’s ether contract also showed an unusually high amount of turnover relative to its open interest, which measures how many positions remained outstanding.
On Monday, ether had about 93 million contracts in 24-hour volume against roughly 1.5 million in open interest. That produced a volume-to-open-interest ratio of 61, meaning around 61 contracts changed hands for every contract still open.
Among Kalshi’s 20 perpetual markets with open interest, that was the second-highest ratio. The median was about eight. Bitcoin’s ratio was 26.
A high ratio does not, by itself, demonstrate improper trading. It does, however, make the structure of the activity more consequential when so much volume comes from repeated trade sizes.
Kalshi launched bitcoin perpetual futures in late May. The U.S. derivatives exchange is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and is better known for its prediction markets.
CoinDesk asked Kalshi whether one participant or several were responsible for the repeated trades, whether market-making or incentive programs were involved, and whether the exchange had identified self-matching or common ownership between accounts.
The exchange had not responded by publication. Afterward, Kalshi said in a blog post that the repeated trades came from a single market maker placing fixed-size orders through a program that pays firms a flat monthly amount to maintain bids and offers within specified size and price limits.
According to Kalshi, hundreds of different traders took the other side of those orders. The exchange said those traders were consistently faster and profitable, while the market maker repeatedly traded at a disadvantage as prices moved away.
Kalshi also said its systems mechanically prevent traders from matching against themselves, that it monitors for coordinated activity, and that it had found no evidence of collusion or wash trading.
Those claims cannot be independently verified from the public feed because the data does not identify individual participants.
The economics of the trading also changed shortly before the CoinDesk sample.
A rebate program filed with the CFTC took effect on Sept. 16, offering certain self-clearing firms fees of 0.003% while paying market makers a rebate at the same rate. That was one day before the four-day period analyzed by CoinDesk.
The timing matters, but the program does not explain when the repeating trade pattern first appeared. The $5,499 ether trades had already emerged almost a month earlier.
A separate Kalshi update that would have introduced a 0.003% crypto taker fee and an equivalent maker rebate did not take effect because it required another exchange notice, according to the company.
The unusual trading pattern also drew criticism online. Pseudonymous trader Beni posted that “Kalshi fakes their crypto volume and I can prove it,” alleging that the exchange was artificially inflating activity. Kalshi’s crypto chief, who uses the handle IcoBeast, disputed part of that argument, saying a volume-share chart cited by Beni referred to prediction markets rather than perpetual futures.
The public data leaves one important question unresolved: exactly why a market maker repeatedly chose those specific dollar targets, and why those targets shifted from roughly $4,999 to $3,999, $4,499 and eventually $5,499.
The mechanics are visible. The motive is not.