Why Institutional Investors Are Now Trading Prediction Markets on Talos

Talos's integration with Kalshi gives institutional trading clients access to prediction markets through the infrastructure they already use to trade digital assets. Speaking on FintechTV from the NYSE following the announcement, Talos CEO and co-founder Anton Katz laid out what the integration means for institutional participants and how he sees the line between digital and traditional assets disappearing over the next several years.

Watch the interview

Highlights

Institutional demand for event contracts

Institutions engage for two distinct use cases: market making event contracts, in the same way they make markets in equities, and using event-based contracts to take or hedge a view on a specific outcome, an exposure that has historically been expressed indirectly through correlated assets, such asFX or equities derivatives.

"Event-based contracts are different. You can take a direct view on that particular event, and either hedge your bet or actually speculate on the event happening or not."

Existing infrastructure extended to a new asset class

The integration does not require Talos clients to onboard a separate system. Institutional clients trading digital assets on Talos gain access to Kalshi through the same algorithmic execution and block trading tools already available. Brokers running Talos's white label platform will gain the ability to extend access to their own customers.

"All those kinds of capabilities that they enjoy right now in the Talos platform, they can now point them towards prediction markets. They don't have to integrate again, they don't have to effectively do anything extra."

Convergence of digital and traditional assets

Anton placed the Kalshi integration within a longer-term view of capital markets infrastructure. Talos was founded on the premise that all assets eventually trade as digital assets, driven by 24/7 markets, real-time settlement and real-time risk. He pointed to DTCC's first live production trades using tokenized assets the week prior, describing it as the first instance of real capital markets assets settling on chain at scale, with Talos facilitating trading and settlement across multiple participants.

"We're not really going to see this distinction between digital assets, traditional assets. Our belief, and this is why we established the company, is that ultimately all assets will be digital assets."

To learn more about Talos's Kalshi integration, read the announcement.