Polymarket has added never-expiring oil contracts to its perpetual futures lineup

Polymarket expands into oil with never-expiring contracts

@Polymarket has moved deeper into traditional finance, launching a suite of perpetual futures contracts that span crypto, equities and commodities. Among the new offerings are two never-expiring contracts linked to the Brent and West Texas Intermediate oil benchmarks, a type of derivative that has drawn scrutiny over its potential impact on price discovery in physical markets. The perpetual futures offer up to 20x leverage across crypto, stocks, commodities and other assets.

The initial lineup covers 10 markets, including $BTC, ETH, SOL and HYPE, as well as gold, silver, the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, WTI oil and SPCX. Access is available internationally in jurisdictions where the service is legally permitted. The launch adds leveraged derivatives to Polymarket's existing prediction market business.

Perpetual futures have no fixed expiry date, allowing users to maintain positions as long as they meet margin requirements. For oil traders, this removes a familiar friction point. Traditional oil futures, like those traded on CME Group's NYMEX, operate on monthly expiration cycles, requiring traders who want to maintain a position to close out one contract and open another, a process that introduces costs and complexity. Perpetual futures eliminate that friction entirely.

Kalshi is chasing the same territory

Polymarket is not alone in targeting the oil derivatives space. Kalshi is preparing to file with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for approval of a never-expiring futures contract linked to West Texas Intermediate crude oil, a move that would create the first regulated perpetual oil futures product in the US, with the filing expected as early as the week of September 8, 2026.

Kalshi launched perpetual futures contracts in May 2026, becoming the first company in American history to offer perpetuals. Offshore perpetuals had grown from $28 trillion in annual volume in 2023 to over $90 trillion in 2025, making them one of the fastest-growing asset classes, though one that had been entirely closed off to American institutions until that point. Kalshi has since been aggressively expanding the product line, filing for perps tied to precious metals and industrial metal copper, in addition to its equity index proposals.

CME Group, the dominant player in US futures markets, has taken legal action against the CFTC over its approval of crypto perpetual futures, with objections centred on the competitive implications of letting a newer, smaller exchange offer products that could siphon volume from established markets. Polymarket's international rollout sidesteps that regulatory battleground for now, though the broader question of how never-expiring oil derivatives interact with physical market pricing remains unresolved.

Sources
Bloomberg: Polymarket Launches Perpetual Oil Futures in 24/7 Trading Push
Crypto Briefing: Kalshi seeks approval for perpetual oil-linked futures contract
CNBC: Kalshi seeks to launch perps on equity indexes