Kalshi Funds Student Protest Against 1958 Onion Futures Act as $40 Billion Platform Eyes Repeal
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Oct 30
Kalshi Funds Student Protest Against 1958 Onion Futures Act as $40 Billion Platform Eyes Repeal
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Oct 30
Summary
Kalshi paid for a bus and sent representatives to a University of Chicago student protest outside the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Oct. 19, backing calls to repeal the Onion Futures Act of 1958.
The campaign targets a little-known law that banned onion futures trading, which Kalshi chief executive Tarek Mansour has criticized publicly.
A later amendment to that law may matter more directly to Kalshi’s business than onions themselves, tying the repeal push to the prediction market platform’s broader regulatory interests.
The episode shows the $40 billion company using an unusual public campaign — complete with onion costumes and pun-filled signs — to challenge a decades-old trading restriction.