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What just happened with Kalshi: $1B Raise, CNN Partnership, and Solana Integration
Key Points
- Kalshi secured a $1B investment round, lifting the platform to an $11B valuation and marking one of the largest raises in prediction markets.
- The team introduced Solana-based tokenized event contracts, giving traders a way to access Kalshi markets through fast, low-cost on-chain settlement.
- Solana integration expands Kalshi’s reach to the crypto trading crowd, where high throughput and cheap transactions matter for volume-driven markets.
- The raise brings new institutional backing and signals a shift toward regulated event markets connecting with on-chain liquidity.
- Kalshi’s volumes continue to climb, setting the stage for broader adoption as the platform builds across both traditional and crypto rails.
Kalshi just announced a $1 billion Series E funding round at an $11 billion valuation, led by Paradigm with participation from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Meritech Capital, IVP, ARK Invest, Anthos Capital, CapitalG, and Y Combinator.
CEO Tarek Mansour stated: "Kalshi is replacing debate, subjectivity, and talk with markets, accuracy, and truth. We have created a new way of consuming and engaging with information."
About Kalshi
Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated financial exchange that lets users trade on the outcome of real-world events. Founded in 2018 by MIT alumni Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, Kalshi has pioneered the prediction market space, transforming event speculation into a legitimate, regulated asset class. Luana Lopes Lara was recently named the world's youngest self-made woman billionaire by Forbes. Backed by top-tier firms like Sequoia, a16z, and Paradigm, Kalshi is widely regarded as the leading platform in this emerging category.
Kalshi's trading volumes have grown over 1,000% since 2024 and are now surpassing $1 billion per week. November saw $4.54 billion in trading activity, beating October's figures and pulling ahead of Polymarket, which recorded $3.76 billion for the month.
CNN Partnership
CNN has struck an exclusive partnership with Kalshi, bringing prediction market data directly into its journalism across television, digital, and social channels. Chief data analyst Harry Enten will tap into real-time insights from Kalshi in his reporting on-air and via CNN's streaming service.
The partnership will include prediction market content related to politics, news, culture, and weather. CNN will also launch a new Kalshi-powered real-time news ticker that will run during segments featuring the data.
Unlike other newsroom collaborations, CNN will not be paying to license Kalshi's data, but the partnership is exclusive—meaning CNN won't work with other prediction market providers.
Solana Integration
Kalshi bettors can now buy and sell tokenized versions of their wagers on Solana. Decentralized finance protocols DFlow and Jupiter will serve as institutional clients, bridging the exchange's off-chain orderbook to Solana's liquidity.
The firm is also creating a $2 million grants program—the Kalshi Builders Program—for developers who help distribute its markets via their front ends or build innovative applications.
Kalshi Head of Crypto John Wang said: "The ultimate moat for any exchange is liquidity. Kalshi is the only prediction market in the world that aggregates on-chain and off-chain, US and international into one giant liquidity pool."
With Solana’s integration, Kalshi now supports direct deposits of SOL and USDC, allowing users to access tokenized prediction contracts via Solana-native apps. These contracts are interoperable with DeFi protocols like Jupiter and DFlow, enabling margin trading, lending, and other composable use cases. It’s the first time a regulated prediction exchange has bridged into the Solana ecosystem at this depth, combining on-chain speed with institutional compliance.
Broader Distribution Moves
Google said last month that it's adding Kalshi and Polymarket odds into its search results as part of an AI-focused revamp of Google Finance. Major crypto exchange Coinbase was also found to be working on a website for a prediction markets platform that would be powered by Kalshi.
Trust Wallet is also rolling out on-chain prediction features powered by Myriad Markets, with Kalshi integrations scheduled for early 2026.
Regulatory Picture
Kalshi recently called the NYC mayoral election eight minutes after polls closed—hours before the media—demonstrating its speed and accuracy
However, challenges remain. The prediction platform faced a recent legal setback with a federal judge overturning Kalshi's key court win, ruling that sporting event contracts aren't regulated by the CFTC. The Nevada court revoked a preliminary injunction that had blocked state regulators from classifying Kalshi's sports contracts as illegal gambling.
Kalshi is also currently facing a nationwide class action lawsuit alleging the platform operates like an unlicensed sportsbook and misrepresents pricing advantages.
What This Means for Prediction Markets
Institutional validation: Paradigm's Matt Huang said Kalshi's growth "shows the scale of latent demand for prediction markets as a new asset class." He added: "People come for one type of market and stay for the breadth. We see this as an uncapped cultural and economic phenomenon, similar to how we felt about crypto a decade ago."
Regulated + on-chain hybrid model: Kalshi is proving that platforms can maintain CFTC oversight while tapping into DeFi liquidity through blockchain integration. This bridges traditional finance users and crypto-native traders.
Media distribution as moat: The CNN partnership (exclusive) plus Google Finance integration positions Kalshi as the go-to source for probability-based news. This kind of mainstream visibility is difficult for purely decentralized competitors to replicate.
What to Watch
- Whether Solana-based tokenized contracts drive meaningful volume from crypto traders
- How Polymarket responds—they're reportedly preparing to re-enter the US market with a compliant product
- Galaxy Digital's potential market-making role for both Kalshi and Polymarket
- Outcome of the class action lawsuit and ongoing sports betting jurisdictional disputes
- Whether Coinbase's Kalshi-powered prediction market launches and how it performs
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