{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,28]],"date-time":"2026-07-28T07:00:37Z","timestamp":1785222037684,"version":"3.55.0"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"group-title":"SSRN","reference-count":0,"publisher":"Elsevier BV","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"abstract":"<jats:p>On 29 May 2026 the CFTC approved Kalshi to list the first regulated perpetual futures contract in the United States. I provide, to my knowledge, the first empirical characterization of this market. Using the complete publicly available funding history through 11 July 2026 (1,226 eight-hour funding observations across 13 contracts, from 3 June 2026) and a purpose-built order book collector, I document three facts. First, the funding rate is exactly zero in 73.0% of funding periods. The mechanism explains how: the disclosed funding rule is a pure premium TWAP against the CF Benchmarks reference index with an explicit 0.01% zero threshold and no interest rate component. Second, the zero prints are not a mechanical artifact of the rounding rule. I apply Kalshi's rule counterfactually to Bybit's premium index over the identical window: the counterfactual zero share is 0.0%, because Bybit's BTC perpetual traded at a persistent discount to its index (mean premium of-4.7 basis points, never positive across five weeks) while Kalshi's perpetual centered on its externally administered reference index within one basis point in nearly two thirds of windows. Third, offshore realized funding appears compressed (mean absolute rate of 0.4bp on BTC) only because the premium and the clamped interest term nearly cancel; I validate this decomposition by reconstructing Bybit's realized funding from its public premium index to within 0.1bp. Two hypotheses can explain the onshore pattern: superior index tracking against a transparent, independently audited reference benchmark, or benchmark-anchored quoting by market makers in a young venue that may contribute little independent price information. These are observationally equivalent at funding frequency. I pre-register an information share analysis, to be executed on eight weeks of joint order book data, that separates them.&amp;nbsp;<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.2139\/ssrn.7098201","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,28]],"date-time":"2026-07-28T06:31:37Z","timestamp":1785220297000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The Perpetual That Rarely Pays: Funding Deadbands and basis Discipline in the First CFTC-regulated Perpetual Futures Market"],"prefix":"10.2139","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-8477-9393","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Boon Chuan","family":"Lim","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"78","container-title":[],"original-title":[],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,28]],"date-time":"2026-07-28T06:31:37Z","timestamp":1785220297000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.ssrn.com\/abstract=7098201"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.7098201","relation":{},"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"subtype":"preprint"}}