[Digital Today reporter Yoonseo Lee] Kalshi's 15-minute gold market on a prediction market platform surpassed its Ethereum market within weeks of launch.

On Oct. 7 local time, Cointelegraph reported that Kalshi's gold contracts totalled 542 million in September, with estimated fees of $5 million. Over the same period, Ethereum contracts totalled 318 million, with estimated fees of $2.6 million. Bitcoin remained the biggest by scale, generating $60.4 million in fee revenue.

The gold contracts were launched in August. Traders can bet every 15 minutes on whether the gold price will rise or fall. The market is focusing on the fact that within a month of launch it generated more contracts and fees than Ethereum.

This trend coincides with Kalshi's expansion of its commodities business. Kalshi said commodities trading volume reached $400 million in September, the highest in seven months. That was more than four times the trading volume of the crypto market at the same point. Kalshi said at the time the crypto market showed the possibility of expansion into new categories, proving that monthly volume could grow from tens of millions of dollars to several billion dollars.

Short-term contracts are also rapidly gaining share within Kalshi. The 15-minute bitcoin market launched last December had become the platform's largest market group as of July, excluding sports parlay betting. The 15-minute Ethereum contracts also jumped to 233 million in July from 6.1 million in January 2026, and rose further to 318 million in September. In the same month, gold contracts hit 542 million, overtaking Ethereum.

The fee structure is also supporting the expansion of short-term markets. According to a recent analysis by prediction market analytics outlet InGame, 15-minute crypto, commodities and financial markets generated $20.4 million in fees, accounting for 80 percent of the platform's non-sports fees over the period. Their share of trading volume was 13 percent, but their share of fees was 20 percent.

InGame explained that this happened because Kalshi's fee formula varies depending on a contract's probability. It added that as a contract price approaches 50-50, the fee share relative to trading volume rises. It also pointed out that fee rates are higher than for contracts concentrated on the most likely outcome or on outcomes with low probability.

As a result, Kalshi's expansion of short-term markets is leading to changes in its revenue structure beyond simply increasing the number of traded products. In particular, with commodities rapidly following the growth path of the crypto market, attention is on whether the share of short-term financial markets will increase further.