Kalshi Files, Then Unfiles PEPE Perp in 48 Hours—Even Meme Coins Get Ghosted 🐸

KalshiEX LLC has withdrawn a CFTC filing for a perpetual futures contract tied to the Pepe meme coin, just two days after submitting it on October 1. The contract, listed under the ticker KPEPEPERP, was self-certified by the prediction market for initial listing and intended to trade on a continuous basis as a cash-settled product with no fixed expiration and no delivery of tokens.

According to the filing, KPEPEPERP was structured as one kPEPE spot price underlying using CF Benchmarks as the underlying price index, with trading hours and funding and settlement pricing modeled on Kalshi's existing kSHIB perp futures. The withdrawal was made without public explanation from the platform.

The PEPE perp filing landed on the same day Kalshi submitted a separate self-certification for Uniswap perpetual futures, which has been approved and listed on the platform. Kalshi had previously listed perpetual futures for Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, both of which remain active products on the exchange.

The news coincided with a decline in PEPE coin price of more than 3% over a 24-hour period, according to market data. Pepe ($PEPE) trades as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum and ranks among the largest meme coins by market capitalization, though specific ranking figures were not cited in the filing or withdrawal notice.

Kalshi had framed KPEPEPERP as a hedging instrument for users seeking exposure to PEPE price movements without holding the underlying token. The platform has not indicated whether it intends to refile the contract or pursue a modified version with the CFTC.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees designated contract markets and self-certified products in the United States, had not commented on the withdrawal at the time of reporting. The episode marks one of the fastest pullbacks of a self-certified crypto derivative filing by a CFTC-regulated venue in recent months.