Kalshi’s first research conference in New York brought together academics, Wall Street executives and traders to show how prediction markets are broadening beyond elections and sports. Even though sports betting hit nearly $3 billion in weekly volume—about 80% of Kalshi’s total—that share is at an all-time low. Categories like entertainment, crypto, politics and culture are growing faster, and Kalshi sees longer-tail markets (the remaining 20%) gaining traction for institutional hedging. Goldman Sachs’ Cyril Goddeeris and CNBC’s Sally Shin say Wall Street is already using Kalshi prices to gauge macro events and Fed moves. Tradeweb’s Troy Dixon predicts banks will soon have dedicated desks for prediction-market contracts. Before prediction markets, institutions trying to hedge political risks had to guess both the event outcome and its impact on correlated assets—effectively making two bets. Now they get a single, liquid benchmark price for events ranging from tariffs to Supreme Court decisions. Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara laid out three steps to full institutional adoption. First, firms treat Kalshi odds as data—like a VIX index—by monitoring it in their workflows. Next comes integration: legal sign-off, tech builds and training. Finally, true adoption happens when institutions trade with size, boosting volume and tightening spreads in a self-reinforcing cycle. Right now most firms are still at stage one or two, held back by the need to post full notional collateral on each contract. Kalshi plans to add margin trading soon, after securing NFA licensing and CFTC approval. Speakers compared today’s prediction-market growth to the early days of options trading: once you sort out regulation and infrastructure, these products become routine. AQR’s Toby Moskowitz has already invested, betting institutional use will ramp up within five years. In Washington, both parties are citing Kalshi odds publicly. That kind of political and financial endorsement suggests prediction markets are moving quickly from niche experiments to everyday tools.