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Kalshi

🛠 Connector Info

  • Exchange Type: Centralized Exchange (CEX)
  • Market Type: Central Limit Order Book (CLOB)
Component Status Notes
🔀 Spot Connector Not available
🔀 Perp Connector ✅ Production only; USD-margined
đŸ•¯ Spot Candles Feed Not available
đŸ•¯ Perp Candles Feed Not available

ℹī¸ Exchange Info

Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated US exchange. This connector trades Kalshi's margin (perpetual) markets, not event contracts. Markets are quoted, margined, and settled in USD.

🔑 How to Connect

You need two values from Kalshi:

  1. API Key ID — a UUID shown when the key is created (for example a952bcbe-ec3b-4b5b-b8f9-11dae589608c)
  2. RSA private key — PEM text downloaded as a .key file; Kalshi cannot show it again

Generate API Keys

  1. Log in at https://kalshi.com.
  2. Open Account & security → API Keys (also at https://kalshi.com/account/profile).
  3. Click Create Key / Create New API Key.
  4. Save both values immediately:
  5. API Key ID — displayed on screen
  6. Private Key — downloaded as a .key file (PEM, BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY or BEGIN PRIVATE KEY)

Warning

The private key is shown only once. Store it securely before closing the page. If you lose it, create a new API key.

See Kalshi: API Keys for the official steps.

Connecting to Hummingbot

From inside the Hummingbot client, run connect kalshi_perpetual:

>>> connect kalshi_perpetual

Enter your Kalshi Perpetual API key ID >>>
Enter your Kalshi Perpetual RSA private key (PEM) >>>

Paste the full PEM, including the BEGIN / END lines. Hummingbot re-wraps a key whose line breaks were lost when pasted into the single-line prompt.

If connection is successful:

You are now connected to kalshi_perpetual

Note

Kalshi also runs a demo environment. This connector is production only (https://external-api.kalshi.com). There is no kalshi_perpetual_testnet command.

🔀 Perp Connector

Integration to perpetual futures markets API endpoints

  • ID: kalshi_perpetual
  • Connection Type: REST + WebSocket (every WebSocket handshake is signed, including public market data)
  • Github Folder

Usage

Use kalshi_perpetual as the connector name in V2 strategies, scripts, and Condor. Trading pairs are Hummingbot-style {BASE}-USD, mapped from Kalshi tickers KX{BASE}PERP:

Kalshi ticker Hummingbot pair
KXBTCPERP BTC-USD

Kalshi quotes prices per contract. Hummingbot converts to underlying units using each market's contract_size (BTC is 0.0001 BTC per contract). Strategy amounts are in BTC (or the market's base), not contract counts.

Order Types

This connector supports the following OrderType constants:

  • LIMIT — good-till-canceled
  • LIMIT_MAKER — post-only
  • MARKET — Kalshi has no native market order; sent as an immediate-or-cancel limit priced 5% through the book

Position Modes

This connector supports the following position modes:

  • One-way

Leverage

Kalshi has no per-order leverage setting. Initial margin (and therefore leverage) comes from each market's published rates and decreases as notional grows. The connector:

  • Caps executor/order leverage at Kalshi's max for that side and size, so orders Kalshi would reject for margin are not approved
  • Rejects a configured leverage higher than Kalshi currently allows on the pair

Check the Kalshi UI or BTC contract specs for the current cap (BTC perps are typically up to 6x).

Fees and Funding

Default Hummingbot fee schema is the base volume tier: 5 bps maker / 12 bps taker, charged on USD notional (not posted margin), on both open and close. Higher volume tiers are cheaper — see Perps Fees Explained.

Funding is separate from fees. Payments settle every 8 hours (12:00 AM, 8:00 AM, and 4:00 PM ET). The connector polls funding payments every 10 minutes, so a payment appears shortly after it settles.

Close orders (reduce_only)

Kalshi rejects reduce_only unless time-in-force is immediate, so only MARKET (IOC) closes send it. Resting LIMIT / LIMIT_MAKER closes (take-profits, limit-chasers) are emulated:

  • A close is rejected before send if there is no position left to reduce
  • After each position refresh, resting closes whose position is gone are cancelled so they cannot open the opposite side

A close larger than the position is not capped (several executors can share one net one-way position). A resting close can still fill between the position emptying and the next refresh.

Rate Limits

Perps traffic uses separate Read and Write token buckets (Basic tier): 200 read tokens/s and 100 write tokens/s. Most calls cost 10 tokens. Balance requests with available-margin computation cost 50. See Kalshi rate limits.