Kalshi is moving beyond being just a venue for wagering on events — it’s trying to become a data and research powerhouse. On Dec. 22 the U.S.-regulated prediction market announced Kalshi Research, an in-house research arm that will open the company’s trading dataset to academic and applied study and produce formal forecasting signals. Kalshi says its platform holds the largest and most granular global dataset of prediction-market activity, and the new unit is explicitly modeled to support both scholarly work and practical policy and business use — a play that echoes research divisions at AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic. What Kalshi announced - Kalshi Research: An internal team to facilitate academic and applied research using Kalshi’s data. - Conference: The company will host the first Prediction Market Conference to convene academics, traders, forecasters and market participants. Calls for abstracts and registration are open. - Early buy-in from top schools: Researchers from Harvard, Stanford, Yale and the University of Chicago are already lined up to participate. Performance claim: inflation forecasts - To launch the unit, Kalshi published an internal study comparing its inflation forecasts against Wall Street consensus. - Key results: Kalshi’s forecasts “outperformed” traditional forecasts by about 40% across market conditions. Measured one week before official inflation releases, Kalshi matched or beat Wall Street 85% of the time. In volatile “shock” events, Kalshi showed a roughly 50% lower mean absolute error, suggesting prediction-market signals may be especially valuable when conditions change rapidly. - Kalshi argues these signals can help not only traders but also policymakers and corporate decision-makers prepare for sudden macro shifts. Growth, partnerships and expansion - Fundraising: Kalshi has seen rapid capital inflows — a $300 million round in October valuing the firm at $5 billion, followed by an early-December financing of $1 billion that pushed valuation to $11 billion. Investors include Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. - Industry ties: Coinbase is preparing prediction markets powered by Kalshi, and Kalshi helped form the Coalition for Prediction Markets with Crypto.com. - Global plans: The company says it plans multiple country launches within the next 18 months. Regulatory backdrop - Kalshi operates in a charged legal environment: it’s U.S.-regulated but faces state-level challenges, including legal disputes in Connecticut and Nevada. Those ongoing issues could complicate expansion and operations. Why this matters for crypto and markets - For crypto platforms and fintechs, Kalshi’s move frames prediction markets as more than gambling tools — they can be timely, data-rich sources of real-world economic signals. Integration with major crypto exchanges (Coinbase, Crypto.com links) could bring prediction-market data and instruments to a broader user base. - For traders, researchers and policymakers, a systematic, open approach to prediction-market data could improve forecasting and stress testing — especially in fast-moving macro environments where traditional models struggle. Bottom line: Kalshi is betting its transaction-level data and academic partnerships will turn prediction markets into a recognized source of forecasting intelligence. If its performance claims hold up under independent scrutiny, the move could push prediction markets deeper into mainstream economic and crypto ecosystems — even as regulatory battles continue to shape what’s possible. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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