How Kalshi Crypto Markets Settle: Reference Prices and What It Means for Your Data
Kalshi's crypto contracts are yes/no bets on where a reference price lands at a fixed time. Getting the data right around that moment is what makes a Kalshi backtest honest.
Kalshi crypto markets are binary (yes/no) contracts that settle against a published reference price sampled at the contract's expiration time: if the condition is met at settlement the yes side pays $1 and no pays $0, otherwise the reverse. The exact reference index and settlement timing are defined per series in Kalshi's own contract terms — always confirm them there.
Binary contracts, priced 0 to 1
Every Kalshi market resolves to yes or no. Prices trade between 1¢ and 99¢ (0.01–0.99), and the price of the yes side is effectively the market's implied probability that the condition resolves true. At settlement, one side is worth $1.00 and the other $0.00.
Because both sides are quoted, Kalshi's order book has yes bids and no bids; DepthFeed captures the full ladder on both sides, up to 100 levels per side.
The reference price
A crypto market like 'will BTC be above $X at the settlement time' needs an authoritative number for the price at that instant. Kalshi settles against a published reference price rather than any single exchange's last trade — a methodology that is harder to manipulate in the final seconds than one venue's print.
The precise reference index, its sampling window, and the settlement timestamp are defined per series in Kalshi's contract terms, and they can differ by asset. Read them there before trusting a backtest's settlement logic — edge cases (exchange outages, index methodology) are governed by the contract rules, not by intuition. DepthFeed does not redefine settlement; it gives you the order book and the underlying price around that moment so you can model it accurately.
Why settlement timing matters for your data
If you are backtesting a strategy that holds into settlement, two things decide whether your result is real: the book right before expiration (where spreads often widen and liquidity thins, so fills get worse) and the underlying reference price at the settlement timestamp (which determines the payoff).
DepthFeed addresses both: continuous full-depth capture means you have the book as it actually was into the close, and every snapshot joins to a high-frequency underlying reference price by epoch-millis timestamp, so you can line the book up against the move that determined settlement.
The data you want around settlement
- Full yes/no book into the final minutes — spreads widen and depth thins near expiration.
- Epoch-millis timestamps, so you can align book state to the settlement instant.
- The underlying reference price at high frequency around the settlement window.
- Continuous capture, not hourly — the last hour of a market is where settlement risk lives.
Key takeaways
- 01Kalshi crypto markets are yes/no contracts that settle against a published reference price at a fixed time.
- 02The exact reference index and timing are defined per series in Kalshi's contract terms — confirm them there.
- 03The yes side's price is the market's implied probability; both sides have an order book.
- 04Honest settlement backtests need the book into expiration plus the underlying price at the settle time.
DepthFeed serves the full Polymarket & Kalshi order book over a REST API and live WebSocket. Free Explorer tier, no card.
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