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Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

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Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#91

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

mritchie712 wrote: post #71
llamaimperative wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a thing exists (Polymarket) and the whole setup has probably precluded many, many, many people from using it including myself. I got halfway through setup before giving up. By contrast, I signed up for Kalshi and bought 3 contracts in the last 30 minutes. Additionally, smart contracts don't actually solve the primary source of (unaccepted) risk: the oracle.

Did you already have Polygon and a wallet (e.g. metamask)? If you didn't have that, I could see it being a pain too much of a pain to deal with. It only took me a minute to use Polymarket, but I already had the prerequisites above.

I love Polymarket. It's what dapps should aspire to be

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#92

Post by tmansour »

EMM_386 wrote: post #87

> Kalshi is partnered with LedgerX LLC (d/b/a FTX US Derivatives) How has the FTX debacle impacted you, if at all? https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/11/17/cftc-has-boots-on...

LedgerX is the only entity in the FTX empire that is fully shielded financially by virtue of being federally regulated by the CFTC.

These are exactly the types of situations where regulation matters most! We have seen no impact from that fallout and our customer funds are fully separated in a segregated member account held safely at SVB.

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#93

Post by toddm »

tmansour wrote: post #61
toddm wrote: post #41

This sounds a lot like intrade.com, which was popular among my coworkers and myself in the early aughts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrade

Intrade was awesome. Great respect for that platform. We're doing a fully regulated, full scale version of Intrade. Regulation allows us to take this to the next level: getting market makers onboard, integrating with brokers, etc.

That's a great model and I wish you and your team success!

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#94

Post by tmansour »

Zufriedenheit wrote: post #52

How do you prevent insider trading? Does your regulation account for that? For example how would you prevent an high ranking NASA employee who knows and/or influences the decision of a moon landing from misusing the platform?

Great question. A few things here.

1. we spent years working with the regulators on defining and building our surveillance systems. They basically ingest data from the exchange and run stats/some ML to flag suspicious trading patterns to an investigation team in our compliance department (similar to when NYSE flags a Goldman trader for insider trading) -- our systems have gotten really sophisticated and you'd be surprised by the amount of commonality there is in cases of fraud/insider trading/manipulation/collusion and so on...

2. we tie people's trading activity to KYC we run at signup. We also pass people through Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) lists, that flag anyone that works in gov and their relatives etc.

3. when we investigate cases of inappropriate behaviors, the consequences can range from fines to criminal prosecution by the CFTC (similar to stock trading)

4. obv all the above are not a single hammer solution, they're heuristics, but people generally don't commit a federal crime to trade with $100, they tend to trade with much more meaningful sums, which fortunately and intuitively is much easier for our oversight programs to flag.

Overall, this question presents a number of fascinating challenges/questions, but it's not a more difficult problem than flagging insider trading/market manipulation in traditional markets like stocks and commodities.

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#95

Post by MrMan »

brap wrote: post #23

So it's like placing bets? This is branded as if it's some new type of stock exchange when in practice it's just another betting platform, no? Other than fancy UI, how is this any different in practice than oddschecker.com or betway.com (I'm not familiar with those sites, just a quick search)? >inb4 all stock exchanges are betting platforms

its binary options, which have long and spotty history. The payout does not cover owernship of an asset and typically the payouts are adjusted to be overall quite disadvantageous for retail bettors. I would stay away, it doesn't matter how they try to rebrand it. do your own research on binary options as they say.

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#96

Post by Lionga »

tmansour wrote: post #90
Lionga wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The facts presented above make your company look very shady, and this answer is not clearing up anything. Like this most people will have to assume you really just paid off / bribed Brian Quintenz.

this insider article should clear up a few things! https://www.capitolaccountdc.com/p/gambling-on-politics-an-i...

It's paywalled and you not wanting to say anything yourself just smells bad

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#97

Post by species9606 »

dang wrote: post #42
orangepurple wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying out the regulators and making competition illegal is the moat YC needed to invest

I have no knowledge about this particular case but that is absolutely not how YC operates or thinks about its business. I've never heard a single comment from anyone at YC along such lines. I'm not moderating this subthread the way we normally would*, but IMO you guys should be more scrupulous about posting snarky smears. * because https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (edit: for anyone wond…

“I have no knowledge about this particular case”

Respectfully, I think you should have stopped there, or perhaps earlier. There is quite a body of evidence already provided in this thread suggesting that Kalshi is an anticompetitive regulatory-capture play.

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#98

Post by kolbe »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #43
kolbe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An important distinction is that if you are an asset manager (i.e. gambler with other people's money), you aren't allowed on traditional betting platforms--only SEC and CFTC approved ones. Now you can bet on political outcomes with other people's money.

Asset managers aren't restricted to trading things on exchanges unless their docs explicitly say so. Many hedge funds place bets directly with investment banks, through exchanges in the US, overseas exchanges etc.

Hedge Funds were more or less created for the express purpose of getting around restrictions that traditional asset management structures place on fund usage. But yes, Hedge Funds, Private Equity, Venture Capital and Family Offices can basically do whatever they want within the confines of their investor agreements.

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#99

Post by pizzalife »

tmansour wrote: post #85
pizzalife wrote: post #28

YC are funding gambling companies now? On brand these days I suppose. How the mighty have fallen.

YC has funded a ton of great financial companies eg. Coinbase, One Chronos, etc. We're a derivative exchange regulated by the CFTC. We're no more gambling than grain futures are!

You're not a financial company. Grain futures have an actual use. Come on now. You're insulting the reader base here.

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#100

Post by nl »

melony wrote: post #19
likecarter wrote: post #8

I'm a big user of https://predictit.org/ . But they are getting shutdown soon, so this is great. One thing I'd suggest: add pictures to the events. Makes it much easier for me to navigate and identify markets. I.e. a Biden picture next to a Biden event.

They are getting shutdown specifically because of Kalshi, see the links in my other comment for some context

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