Polymarket has launched perpetual futures with up to 20 times leverage across 67 markets — covering not just crypto but individual stocks like Tesla and Nvidia, equity indexes, gold, silver and crude oil — in the most aggressive expansion yet of on-chain trading into assets that Wall Street considers its own.
By Priya Sharma | September 4, 2026
The prediction-market platform began trading the new contracts on Thursday, according to Unchained. Perpetual futures — “perps” in market slang — are contracts with no expiration date. Instead of settling on a fixed date, a funding rate periodically moves payments between long and short holders to keep the contract anchored to the underlying price. A position stays open as long as your margin holds, which is where the 20 times leverage comes in: it magnifies both gains and losses by the same factor.
The Hook: Stocks, Oil and Gold Trading On-Chain Around the Clock
The rollout covers cryptocurrencies, individual stocks, equity indexes, gold, silver, and both Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude oil. The equities contracts include Tesla, Nvidia, Strategy, Coinbase, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100 and even SpaceX, according to Polymarket’s own product page. That means a trader anywhere in the world can now take a leveraged position on Nvidia or oil — on a blockchain, 24 hours a day, with no Wall Street broker in the middle.
For context on why this is significant: perpetual futures were invented by crypto exchanges and became the industry’s most-traded product, but they have never existed for US stocks on a regulated American venue. Polymarket’s answer to that gap is geographic: the perpetuals trade on its international site, which blocks US traders and directs them to polymarket.us, its CFTC-regulated designated contract market — which does not list the perpetuals.
The Core Conflict: Regulators Are Still Making Up Their Minds
US regulators have approved perpetuals for digital assets, but they have been hesitant to bless the structure for commodities like crude oil, citing potential effects on price discovery in physical markets. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission spent the summer seeking public comments on 24/7 futures trading and on perpetual contracts tied to physically delivered or storable energy commodities, with the comment window closing on August 26. In July, the CFTC halted CME Group’s self-certified listing of a 24/7 crude oil futures contract pending review.
Polymarket sidestepped all of that by keeping the products offshore. But its rivals are pushing through the front door. Kalshi is reportedly preparing to file with the CFTC as early as next week for a WTI crude perpetual that would trade 24 hours a day, five days a week — which would be the first oil-linked perpetual on a regulated US venue if cleared. Kalshi has separately filed for perpetuals on metals, equity indexes, foreign exchange and interest rates, and the CFTC has said it will review new asset classes case by case.
Polymarket itself has also filed for US margin trading through an affiliated entity, chasing Kalshi into leveraged prediction markets. In other words, both platforms are racing to offer Americans the same leveraged, around-the-clock exposure that their international users already have — and each is betting that regulators will eventually say yes.
Market Implications: The DeFi Toolkit Meets the Stock Market
The launch is the clearest sign yet that prediction markets are evolving into full-service derivatives exchanges. The playbook is straight out of decentralized finance: take a funding-rate-based perpetual — the same mechanism popularized by on-chain perp exchanges — and point it at traditional assets. The difference is that Polymarket and Kalshi are centralized platforms operating with, or seeking, regulatory cover, which gives them a path to mainstream users that pure DeFi protocols lack.
For traditional brokers, the threat is obvious. A 20-times-leverage contract on the S&P 500 that trades on weekends, settles instantly and requires no brokerage account undercuts the very products that generate trading revenue. The question is no longer whether on-chain markets will compete with Wall Street — it is whether that competition happens inside the US regulatory perimeter or outside it.
What This Means for You
Two practical takeaways. First, if you are outside the US and tempted by 20 times leverage, understand the arithmetic: at that leverage, a 5 percent move against your position wipes out your entire margin. Leveraged perps are how experienced traders blow up; treat them accordingly. Second, for everyone else, watch the CFTC. Kalshi’s WTI perpetual filing could open the door to a regulated US market in never-expiring contracts on oil, stocks and more — and each approval makes the next one easier.
The Verdict
Polymarket’s launch is less a product announcement than a provocation: a demonstration that on-chain markets can offer leveraged exposure to anything, anywhere, at any hour — and that the only thing standing between American traders and those markets is a regulator’s signature. The CFTC’s next few decisions will determine whether that signature comes. Until then, the action stays offshore, and the leverage stays very, very real.
Price snapshot at time of writing (CoinGecko, 17:00 UTC): BTC around 78,289 USD, ETH around 2,491 USD, SOL around 94.90 USD. The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
20x on oil and tesla perps on a prediction market site. the degens have officially become the exchange
wait till the funding rate on a tesla perp goes negative for a week straight, then we find out who is the exchange and who is exit liquidity
20x on tsla and crude oil settled inside a prediction market app. the cftc lawyers are definitely having a fun thursday
The question nobody is asking is who takes the other side when a 20x book gaps overnight. Traditional brokers have circuit breakers for a reason.
Sixty-seven markets including equity indexes on-chain is a bigger deal than people realize. Wall Street moat is settlement, and Polymarket just took a bite out of it.
funding rates on 67 markets with no expiry. retail is about to learn what a liquidation cascade across gold and nvda at the same time feels like
and the oracle is the real attack surface. if funding anchors to an index feed someone will find the latency gap between tradfi close and the feed. always happens
nvda gaps 9 percent on an earnings print and that funding rate has to absorb it with no halt. oracle lag is a footnote next to the gap risk at 20x
silver and tsla perps at 2am on a tuesday. settlement was the last wall street moat and polymarket just put a door in it, cftc inbox about to melt