Today's

top partner

for CFD

Business

Crypto

Finance

Growth

StockX, the global marketplace for rare and high-demand products, has announced a strategic partnership with Kalshi, the first CFTC-regulated exchange for trading on the outcome of future events. The companies aim to create a new class of event contracts linked directly to consumer culture and resale-market behaviour.

Discover how neo-banks become wealthtech in London at the FMLS25

A few years ago, traders operated with a standard set of financial tools: commodity futures, equities, treasuries, and, for those seeking more volatility, traditional Forex. Today, the universe of tradable assets has expanded far beyond that list. Sneakers, plush collectibles, trading cards, and even niche hype items are no longer just consumer goods – they are repackaged into financial instruments.

Kalshi and StockX effectively turn cultural demand into a regulated market signal. According to the announcement, the partnership introduces “a new category of event contracts” based on aggregated and anonymised StockX market data. As a result, Kalshi users can bet on measurable outcomes tied to products released, sold, or traded on StockX.

How the New Financial Instrument Works

The first batch of contracts under the partnership is already live on Kalshi’s platform. All instruments are tied to real-time StockX resale data and allow traders to speculate on quantifiable product outcomes — for example, whether a sneaker will clear a specific resale price level seven days after launch.

Currently, the StockX-linked markets fall into three categories:

Top-traded brands during major events: Traders can predict which brand will dominate StockX sales during periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Average sales prices for upcoming releases: Participants place bets on what a product’s average resale price will be over seven or 30 days after launch.

Monthly average prices for top-selling products: These contracts reflect expected monthly resale prices for selected high-demand items.

Among the featured items are a mix of holiday sneaker releases, Supreme apparel, Pokémon Ultra-Premium collections, and popular Pop Mart Labubu collectibles.

StockX CEO Greg Schwartz notes that this new format builds on the marketplace’s original vision:
“At StockX, we’ve always been committed to providing access to the data our customers need to trade what they love. Adding our trusted market insights to Kalshi’s new product-related contracts takes that commitment a step further.”

The Good and the Uncertain

According to Mansour, the collaboration demonstrates that expertise developed within fandom communities can translate into financial insight.

“Entire fanbases have spent years mastering how to value them. Some of the best quants I know on Wall Street started out as sneaker bot flippers,” he wrote.

At the same time, the model raises fundamental questions, as it completely detaches financial speculation from a physical asset. Users do not need to own underlying items like toys or sneakers to be able to bet on outcomes.

Thus, the model implies that traders may be focused on herd behaviour instead of the real value of the item, blurring the already thin line between financial analysis and gambling.

A Regulated Layer: Why Kalshi Matters

However, unlike unregulated betting platforms, Kalshi’s contracts operate within CFTC-defined rules, which partially mitigates speculative risks and gives the product a legal footing.

Kalshi is currently the only event-trading platform regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This status means that all contracts offered on the exchange must adhere to the same risk-control, reporting, and compliance standards required of traditional derivatives markets.

In practice, CFTC oversight ensures that markets are backed by measurable, verifiable outcomes and that trading occurs within a transparent, legal framework. It also ensures that retail investors are protected from the unregulated, casino-like structures common in offshore prediction markets.

Kalshi’s regulated status adds value to the partnership and marks a pivotal shift in the approach of the U.S. regulator, effectively giving the green light to turning hype into a tradable asset.

Prediction Markets Gain Momentum

The rapid growth of prediction markets further highlights the importance of Kalshi’s regulated footprint. In October 2025, combined volumes on Kalshi and Polymarket surpassed $7.4 billion, with Kalshi capturing roughly 66% of the market.

According to Jack Such from Kalshi, who leads Business & Media Development at Kalshi, prediction markets have the potential to become a trillion dollar asset class. Analysts now expect that prediction markets could reach as much as $95.5 billion by 2035 driven by institutional participation, DeFi integrations, and advances in AI-powered forecasting.

Earlier this month Gemini Space Station announced plans to enter prediction markets business, joining a growing list of financial firms trying to capitalise on the trend. Coinbase is also said to be developing a prediction markets website backed by Kalshi.

This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.

—

— CONTENT NOT MODERATED BY G6

— Please be careful with this content. If you don’t think it should be here, please get in touch with us at [email protected]