A Kalshi contract betting that the U.S. Treasury will buy bitcoin before 2028 touched 21%, but only a sliver of money is backing that number.
Key Takeaways
- Kalshi priced a U.S. Treasury bitcoin purchase before Jan. 1, 2028 at 21%, versus 2% for 2026.
- Only about 1,600 contracts have traded across both Kalshi deadlines, a very thin market.
- Kalshi traders give bitcoin a 44% chance of dipping below $77,500 before Oct. 31.
The Contract’s Ask
Odds on Kalshi had risen past 20% that the U.S. Treasury will buy bitcoin next year. The fine print, however, was narrower and it bears mentioning that the market resolves only on a Treasury announcement of a completed bitcoin purchase for a government-held reserve. Speeches, studies and executive orders do not count.
The 21% figure belongs to the contract that runs until Jan. 1, 2028. The shorter contract, covering the rest of 2026, showed just 2% in the same screenshot. So the market is not saying Washington is about to start buying but will purchase sometime in 2027 is possible.
What Remained Unsaid
At press time, the contract shows just $1,617 in total volume, with Kalshi’s own data from earlier today listing roughly 309 contracts traded on the 2028 deadline and about 1,305 on the 2026 deadline (priced in cents).
In a market that thin, one motivated trader can move the needle. By Monday morning, the last trade on the 2028 contract had slipped to 11%, with bids at 12 cents and offers at 17 cents.
Compare that with a deeper Kalshi market on whether Trump creates a National Bitcoin Reserve before Jan. 1, 2027. That one has seen close to 200,000 contracts change hands and trades near 3.5%.
Prediction markets also just got a public lesson in humility with Bitcoin.com News recently reporting that most major prediction platforms misread Brazil’s runoff as Lula da Silva came back to win (this was after traders had priced his chances at around 17% the night before).
Where Bitcoin Might Be Headed
Whale Insider flagged that traders see bitcoin going as low as $78,000 this month. Kalshi’s October low contracts back that up as the “below $80,000” contract is effectively settled after last week’s drop, “below $77,500” trades near 44% on more than 117,000 contracts, and “below $75,000” sits near 16%.
Bitcoin’s price slid to $79,146 over the weekend, and Peter Schiff has already said it could hit $75K. Crypto bettors are clearly active, too, with Kalshi and Polymarket just logging a record $2.7 billion week in crypto contracts, driven mostly by bitcoin bets.
The Policy Wall
The case for a Treasury bid rests on rhetoric more than mechanics. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the House Armed Services Committee in April that he is a long-time enthusiast of “Bitcoin and crypto potential,” but described related Pentagon work as classified.
Enthusiasm is not a budget line, though and market tracker Octagon noted that the executive order behind the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve bars open-market purchases, and that the BITCOIN Act, which would mandate buying, has not been enacted. Without new law or a budget-neutral workaround, the Treasury has no clear path to a “completed purchase.”
That leaves three ways this contract plays out:
- Congress moves: A reserve bill with purchase authority passes in 2027, and the 2028 contract reprices sharply higher.
- A workaround appears: The Treasury announces a budget-neutral swap or revaluation that it calls a purchase, which would test the contract’s wording.
- Nothing happens: The reserve keeps growing only through seizures, and a 21% print on $1,578 of volume fades into a footnote.