Kalshi vs Manifold Markets

Kalshi lists event contracts on its own CFTC-designated exchange. You buy a contract, it settles, and a correct position pays out in dollars you can withdraw to a bank account, card, PayPal, Venmo or crypto.

Manifold’s markets run on mana. Its FAQ states plainly that mana “cannot be converted to cash”, and every account starts with M1000 for free. The price mechanics teach you the same thing — a contract at 30¢ is the market saying 30% — but nothing settles into money. Manifold does run a separate Prize Drawing that pays prizes in USDC, and its own rules make that void in Delaware, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Washington and Washington, D.C. A chance at a prize is not the same as being able to withdraw your own balance, and we did not score it as though it were.

Kalshi charges monetary trading fees under a price-dependent schedule, with exceptions by series. Its general taker formula depends on contract count, entry price and a series multiplier; the current schedule is linked on the review. Our fee rating remains pending reassessment. Manifold’s mana economy is not directly comparable to cash fees.

Manifold never states a trading fee either way in its own documentation. It does document a M$1 fee on comments placed through the API and market-creation costs of M$50 for a binary market, M$250 for pseudo-numeric and M$25 per answer for multiple choice — but an unstated trading fee is not a verified zero, so we do not claim Manifold is free to trade even though it very likely is. In cash terms the question is close to meaningless anyway: mana costs you nothing to start with and converts to nothing at the end.

Kalshi appears on the CFTC’s Designated Contract Market register as “Kalshi — Designated — 11/03/2020” — the exchange itself, and the oldest designation among the ten platforms we track. Its onboarding reflects that supervision: identity verification is mandatory and Kalshi attributes it to “our regulatory obligations under United States (US) law”.

Manifold holds no licence and names no regulator. Its own FAQ explains why one is not needed, and because the currency cannot be cashed out there is no customer trading balance at risk — which is genuinely different from an unlicensed venue holding real money, and is why Manifold rates above the offshore real-money venues we researched rather than at the bottom. It is still true that nobody supervises it, that funds are not segregated, and that mana is sold for real money even though it cannot be sold back.

Kalshi: USD, $10 minimum except by wire, a wide list of deposit routes including debit card, ACH, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, crypto and wire, and withdrawals by card, bank, crypto, PayPal or Venmo. The frictions it states itself are a 2% processing fee on debit deposits and temporary holds on deposited funds before withdrawal, varying by method. Identity verification is required before you trade.

Manifold: nothing to deposit, since every account starts with M1000 free, and nothing to withdraw, since the currency cannot be converted to cash. That combination is why its deposits-and-withdrawals rating is the lowest we have given any platform — a balance with no exit scores badly on a criterion that measures exits — and it is not a criticism of a product that never promised one. Whether Manifold requires identity verification is not addressed in its FAQ; phone verification exists but is optional and attached to a bonus.