Bitcoin prediction markets

How often a window opens

The 15-minute series runs four windows an hour, around the clock. One closes and the next is already trading, so something is always in front of you. The hourly series runs one market per hour. Kalshi lists coming hours ahead of time, but each one opens for trading exactly one hour before it closes, and before that it has no price. An unopened hour carries a placeholder value in the API, and we never print that as a price. The hourly desk says the hour is not trading yet and leaves the price blank.

What the strike looks like

A 15-minute window has one strike, set when the window opens, and that is the number BTC has to finish above. The hourly contract has a ladder: each rung is its own market asking whether BTC will be at or above that price at the close. Kalshi writes those as greater-than strikes with a floor just under the round number, so a floor of 80,499.99 is the market you read as “$80,500 or above”. The desk shows five rungs near the live price.

Who each one suits

The 15-minute window suits someone who wants the decision finished inside one sitting and is comfortable with a market that often prices near a coin flip. The hourly ladder suits someone who would rather choose the distance from spot than take whatever strike the clock hands them, and who can wait for the hour to open. We publish no graded record for either, because we have not graded one.

How BTC settles

Kalshi settles these contracts on a CF Benchmarks index, not on the last trade at one exchange. The 15-minute BTC contract settles on a 60-second average of the CF Benchmarks Bitcoin Real-Time Index over the final minute, so a spike in the last second cannot decide it alone. Our chart draws Coinbase BTC-USD candles, and Coinbase is one of the exchanges inside that index, so the two track closely but are not identical.