Kalshi traded 2 billion contracts in a week on whether Bitcoin rises in the next 15 minutes. It rose 333 times and fell 331

Data analysis · Updated October 25, 2026 · 18+ · Not financial advice · By BetG8 Editorial · Prediction Markets

Kalshi 15-minute Bitcoin contract: 2 billion contracts in a week — Every 15 minutes Kalshi asks one question about Bitcoin. Last week traders answered it with about $2 billion of contracts.

Short answer: Crypto Briefing reported on October 24 that crypto contracts on Kalshi and Polymarket hit a record $2.7 billion in a single week, and that Kalshi's Bitcoin contracts alone passed $2 billion. We checked the biggest piece of that ourselves. Kalshi's public market data shows that the 664 windows of its 15-minute Bitcoin market that settled in the seven days to 08:00 UTC on October 25 traded 2,004,129,093 contracts, each with a $1 notional value, or about 3.02 million per window. The answers were as close to random as a market gets: 333 windows settled up and 331 settled down. The busiest hours were US late evenings. And because a buyer at 50 cents pays a 1.75-cent fee on a contract that wins about half the time, the most traded crypto product in American prediction markets is, on average, a coin flip with a toll.

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What the contract actually is

The series is listed on Kalshi as KXBTC15M and every market in it carries the same title: BTC price up in next 15 mins? When a window opens, Kalshi fixes a target price, for example $80,597.44 for the window that closed at 08:00 UTC on October 25. A Yes contract pays $1 if the Bitcoin reference price defined in Kalshi's crypto contract terms is above that target when the window closes, and nothing otherwise. A No contract is the mirror image. Prices trade between 1 and 99 cents in the meantime, so the price of Yes is the market's running estimate, in cents, of the chance that Bitcoin finishes the quarter-hour higher than it started.

A new window opens every 15 minutes, 96 times a day, every day. Kalshi's series data lists the category as Crypto, the frequency as fifteen_min and the fee type as quadratic with a multiplier of 1, which means the ordinary fee formula applies with no discount. There is no leverage, no funding rate and no liquidation: the most a buyer can lose on a contract is what they paid for it.

The week in numbers

We downloaded every settled KXBTC15M market from Kalshi's public API and kept the ones that closed between 08:15 UTC on October 18 and 08:00 UTC on October 25. Volume is the number of contracts traded, as Kalshi reports it.

Measure	Week to 08:00 UTC, October 25
Windows settled	664
Contracts traded	2,004,129,093
Average per window	3.02 million
Busiest window	5.45 million, closing 16:45 UTC on October 21, target $84,659.98, settled down
Quietest window	1.21 million
Settled up (Yes)	333 (50.2%)
Settled down (No)	331 (49.8%)
Longest run of the same result	9 windows in a row
Range of target prices	$79,294.88 to $84,776.32

The daily totals were remarkably flat. On the six full UTC days from October 19 to October 24 the market traded between 277 million and 310 million contracts a day: 282.0 million on the 19th, 299.9 million on the 20th, 302.1 million on the 21st, 277.0 million on the 22nd, 310.4 million on the 23rd and 282.6 million on the 24th. Bitcoin itself moved within a band of about $5,500 over the week, so the volume was not chasing a crash or a breakout. It was the steady hum of a product people use every day.

When people trade it: American late nights

Grouping the windows by the hour in which they closed shows who the customers are. The four busiest clock hours were the windows closing between 01:00 and 04:59 UTC, which is 9pm to 1am on the US East Coast, and each of those hours drew between 100 million and 106 million contracts over the week. The quietest were 09:00 to 11:59 UTC, 5am to 8am Eastern, at 50 million to 54 million. A product used by global crypto traders would peak during European and Asian sessions or around US market opens. This one peaks when American retail users are at home after dinner, which matches Kalshi's description of itself as a US-only exchange.

The fee turns a fair flip into a losing one

Kalshi charges a taker 0.07 times contracts times price times one minus price, rounded up to the next cent, as we explain in Kalshi fees explained. On a contract near 50 cents that is 1.75 cents, the maximum the formula allows. Take the typical case: a trader buys 100 Yes contracts at 50 cents just after a window opens. The contracts cost $50.00 and the fee is $1.75, so the outlay is $51.75. If Bitcoin closes above the target, the trader receives $100; if not, nothing.

Step	Calculation	Amount
Cost of 100 Yes at $0.50	100 × $0.50	$50.00
Taker fee	0.07 × 100 × 0.50 × 0.50	$1.75
Break-even win rate	$51.75 ÷ $100	51.75%
Win rate observed last week	333 ÷ 664	50.2%
Expected result per 100 contracts at a 50% win rate	$50.00 − $51.75	−$1.75, or −3.4% of outlay

Minus 3.4 percent does not sound like much until you remember the product repeats 96 times a day. A trader who takes one 100-contract position in every window from 9pm to 1am Eastern places 16 trades a night and, on average, gives up about $28 to fees for every $830 of turnover, before the bid-ask spread, which is a second cost the fee schedule does not show. Makers who rest orders on the book pay less, which is why professional market makers can live on this product while takers who buy at the market are paying for the privilege. If every one of last week's two billion contracts had been a taker fill at 50 cents, fees would have come to about $35 million; the true figure is lower, because many fills were makers or at prices away from 50 cents, and Kalshi does not publish it.

Where this sits in the record week

Crypto Briefing's report put Kalshi and Polymarket together at $2.7 billion of crypto contract volume in one week in mid-October, with Kalshi's Bitcoin contracts above $2 billion, and said crypto is now the second most traded category on both platforms after sports. Our count of roughly two billion contracts in the 15-minute series alone is consistent with that. The same report said Kalshi's total volume across all categories reached $19.03 billion for October 5 to 11, and that Polymarket's US arm traded about $92 million to $101 million in 15-minute Bitcoin contracts in its first full week. Polymarket's offshore site lists longer-dated Bitcoin questions too, such as what price Bitcoin will hit before 2027, which trade far less per day than Kalshi's quarter-hour series. For comparison with leveraged products, our guide to perpetual funding costs shows what holding a Bitcoin position overnight costs on a derivatives exchange.

Method and limits

Figures come from Kalshi's public trade API, series KXBTC15M, status settled, downloaded at about 08:00 UTC on October 25, 2026. We counted the 664 markets whose close time fell in the seven days ending 08:00 UTC that day; volume is Kalshi's reported contract count for each market, and results are Kalshi's published settlement. Hour and day groupings use each window's close time in UTC. The fee example uses the published taker formula at a 50-cent price; it ignores the spread, maker rebates and price paths, and is an illustration, not a measurement of what traders paid. One week is a small sample and a 333 to 331 split says nothing about the next window. Nothing here is a recommendation to trade.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kalshi's 15-minute Bitcoin market?

It is a series of yes-or-no contracts, ticker KXBTC15M, that ask whether the Bitcoin reference price will be above a target price set at the start of each 15-minute window. A Yes contract pays $1 if it is, a No contract pays $1 if it is not. A new window opens every 15 minutes, 96 times a day.

How much was traded on it in the week to October 25, 2026?

The 664 windows that settled in the seven days to 08:00 UTC on October 25 traded 2,004,129,093 contracts in total, about 3.02 million per window, according to Kalshi's public market data. Each contract has a $1 notional value.

Did Bitcoin go up or down more often?

Neither in any meaningful way. 333 windows settled Yes, meaning up, and 331 settled No. That is 50.2 percent up, which is what a coin would do.

What does a 15-minute Bitcoin contract cost in fees?

The series uses Kalshi's standard taker formula, 0.07 times contracts times price times one minus price, rounded up. At 50 cents that is 1.75 cents per contract, so a buyer pays 51.75 cents for something that wins about half the time.