Kalshi’s mention market on Trump’s speech took in 391,165 trades over 46 days of live markets . 79% of the money showed up on speech night for a total of 11.97 million in lifetime value.
Kalshi’s SOTU mention markets opened on Jan. 9 with 25 contracts and kept adding through speech day, finishing at 55. By the time Trump walked into the chamber on Feb. 24, traders had already put $2.50 million to work positioning across everything from “Crypto / Bitcoin” to “Discombobulator.”
Then Trump’s speech ran 107 minutes — the longest in modern history — and the floodgates opened. Another $9.47 million poured in on speech day alone, 79% of the event’s lifetime total, with $2.76 million of that landing in a single hour. Here’s how the volume broke down and what resolved where.
The full picture
The event generated $11.97 million in lifetime volume across 391,165 trades, making it the most heavily traded single-speech prediction market event on record. At peak, it carried 17.7 million contracts in open interest across all 55 markets.
Contracts launched in three waves: 27 in January covering perennial Trump phrases like Trillion, Crypto/Bitcoin, and Drill Baby Drill; 18 more in February as the speech approached; and a final batch of 10 on the afternoon of Feb. 24 itself, just hours before the address.
These figures cover only Kalshi’s mention markets. It does not include Kalshi’s separate attendance markets ($6.62 million), speech duration brackets ($1.45 million), or Polymarket’s parallel SOTU contracts, which collectively pushed total cross-platform SOTU volume past $17 million.
71% of speech day volume traded between 8 and 11 PM
The $9.47 million in speech-day volume split dramatically between the morning and evening. Pre-noon trading (12:00 AM–11:59 AM EST) accounted for just $584,138 in volume across 20,134 trades — roughly 6% of the day’s total. The remaining $8.89 million and 267,065 trades came after noon, with volume accelerating sharply as the 9:00 PM speech time approached.
The average trade size held relatively steady across both sessions: $29 per trade before noon versus $33 per trade after.
$2.76M
Peak hour volume (9–10 PM)
Speech began ~9:00 PM EST · Concluded ~10:48 PM EST
| Hour (EST) | Volume | % of total | Trades | OI change |
|---|
The three-hour window from 8:00–11:00 PM — bracketing the speech itself — accounted for $6.36 million in volume, or 71% of the post-noon total.
The single busiest hour was 9:00–10:00 PM EST (the first hour of the speech), which generated $2.76 million in volume across 85,622 trades and added 3.4 million contracts in open interest. That one hour alone represented 31% of all post-noon volume.
The 8:00–9:00 PM hour saw $1.69 million in volume and 43,701 trades. The 10:00–11:00 PM hour added another $1.91 million across 55,934 trades. By 11:00 PM, activity dropped to just $33,023.
A note on concentrated volume: Trillion and 250 both saw the vast majority of their volume arrive in one or two hours via large-sized orders ($390–$491/trade vs. the $33 event average). Without the 8–10 PM window, both would rank in the bottom half of the leaderboard by volume.
Nearly a 50/50 split between resolution
Of the 55 contracts, 29 resolved YES and 26 resolved NO. Here’s a full breakdown of volume, OI and the % of trading that happened during 12pm to midnight. *Note, DEI and Woke appeared twice in this market as DEI / Woke and Woke / DEI.
Volume and trades are lifetime figures. Speech Day % = share of volume traded on Feb. 24 (speech day). Contracts at 100% opened that afternoon.
| Contract | Result | Volume | Trades | Peak OI | Speech Day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Somali / Somalia | YES | $867,839 | 23,462 | 1,006,941 | 81% |
| Fake News | NO | $603,228 | 26,422 | 790,143 | 78% |
| SAVE Act | NO | $587,461 | 15,407 | 741,176 | 100% |
| Crypto / Bitcoin | NO | $548,100 | 16,454 | 1,033,158 | 66% |
| Highest Inflation | NO | $541,092 | 20,285 | 570,045 | 71% |
| Trillion | YES | $400,337 | 2,999 | 472,392 | 87% |
| Transgender | NO | $395,172 | 11,042 | 325,623 | 90% |
| Cartel | YES | $389,943 | 6,983 | 825,121 | 97% |
| Hockey | YES | $337,691 | 4,316 | 427,240 | 84% |
| Olympics / World Cup | YES | $333,126 | 6,368 | 345,167 | 72% |
| Ballroom | NO | $332,120 | 16,713 | 450,139 | 75% |
| Sleepy Joe | NO | $298,303 | 16,787 | 397,112 | 61% |
| TrumpRX / TrumpRX.gov | YES | $284,048 | 3,794 | 257,872 | 87% |
| Hoax | NO | $280,222 | 16,727 | 420,146 | 72% |
| Drill Baby Drill | YES | $245,951 | 11,588 | 358,740 | 69% |
| Radical Left | NO | $243,325 | 9,957 | 231,427 | 76% |
| MAHA | NO | $242,196 | 9,181 | 218,978 | 88% |
| Discombobulator | NO | $239,734 | 7,108 | 498,169 | 67% |
| Affordability | YES | $234,724 | 7,662 | 260,581 | 52% |
| 250 | YES | $230,546 | 2,629 | 338,512 | 76% |
| ICE / National Guard | YES | $226,309 | 6,121 | 207,630 | 80% |
| Union is Strong | YES | $225,522 | 5,309 | 237,304 | 72% |
| DOGE | NO | $206,072 | 7,706 | 385,167 | 81% |
| UFC | NO | $204,809 | 9,967 | 310,787 | 77% |
| Nuclear | YES | $198,095 | 3,910 | 207,409 | 61% |
| Golden Dome | NO | $189,647 | 7,667 | 228,393 | 91% |
| Trump | YES | $169,138 | 3,731 | 241,514 | 54% |
| Foster | YES | $167,058 | 2,135 | 148,983 | 94% |
| Supreme Court | YES | $164,799 | 5,219 | 309,022 | 83% |
| Ethereum | NO | $163,128 | 7,368 | 1,499,044 | 82% |
| Hottest | YES | $157,982 | 3,553 | 190,323 | 54% |
| Vaccine / Autism | NO | $157,487 | 8,205 | 185,488 | 64% |
| Alien | YES | $140,835 | 3,009 | 300,469 | 83% |
| Midnight Hammer | YES | $140,075 | 4,357 | 203,289 | 88% |
| Fentanyl / Cocaine | YES | $139,460 | 2,863 | 163,217 | 72% |
| Eight War | YES | $116,789 | 4,257 | 156,932 | 64% |
| TDS | NO | $116,766 | 7,474 | 284,158 | 81% |
| Cheat / Cheating | YES | $113,796 | 7,355 | 168,901 | 83% |
| Egg | YES | $111,723 | 3,909 | 173,904 | 100% |
| Mental Institution | YES | $110,493 | 5,101 | 136,616 | 68% |
| Cancer | NO | $101,470 | 2,988 | 126,585 | 100% |
| Coal | NO | $100,142 | 3,051 | 116,157 | 100% |
| Genius Act | NO | $95,011 | 2,781 | 172,054 | 88% |
| Rare Earth / Mineral | NO | $84,307 | 4,066 | 105,227 | 90% |
| Woke / DEI | YES | $83,573 | 2,855 | 124,260 | 67% |
| Fraud | YES | $82,169 | 2,599 | 92,393 | 65% |
| Stock Market | YES | $80,104 | 1,571 | 103,736 | 100% |
| Windmill | NO | $72,832 | 4,158 | 100,376 | 70% |
| Autopen | NO | $72,180 | 4,570 | 157,858 | 83% |
| Nationalize | NO | $71,854 | 4,891 | 233,572 | 100% |
| AI | YES | $64,786 | 1,593 | 116,391 | 100% |
| DEI / Woke | YES | $61,744 | 2,103 | 79,065 | 82% |
| No No No | YES | $57,171 | 3,486 | 119,600 | 100% |
| Insurrection Act | NO | $44,987 | 2,725 | 143,428 | 100% |
| Martial Law | NO | $40,149 | 2,628 | 179,319 | 100% |
| YES total (29) | YES | $5,935,826 | 144,837 | — | — |
| NO total (26) | NO | $6,031,794 | 246,328 | — | — |
Somali / Somalia led all contracts with $867,839 in lifetime volume (23,462 trades) and resolved YES. It was also the top contract by contract volume at 2.1 million. Trump devoted an extended section of the speech to fraud allegations in Minnesota’s Somali community, claiming members had “pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer” and calling them “pirates who ransacked Minnesota.” Federal prosecutors have charged 98 people in connection with the fraud, with the DOJ estimating losses closer to $9 billion. The remarks drew one of the night’s most heated exchanges — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) shouted back from the floor, calling the president a liar, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) joined in. The contract’s open interest peaked at 1.01 million, third-highest in the event.
Fake News ranked second with $603,228 in lifetime volume across 26,422 trades — the highest trade count of any contract — and resolved NO. Despite being one of Trump’s most well-known catchphrases, it went unspoken during Tuesday night’s 107-minute address.
SAVE Act placed third at $587,461 and resolved NO. One of 10 contracts that didn’t open until the afternoon of Feb. 24, it generated its entire volume in under 14 hours. Trump explicitly called on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a voter ID bill that had cleared the House but not the Senate, telling lawmakers to “approve the SAVE America Act” and claiming election cheating was “rampant.” Despite the direct mention, the contract resolved NO — the phrase as listed on Kalshi was not spoken verbatim. The contract saw the event’s most dramatic open interest ramp: from 6,078 contracts at noon to a peak of 741,176 — a 12,094% increase.
Crypto / Bitcoin came fourth at $548,100 in lifetime volume, with a third of that ($188,036) accumulated before speech day — one of the largest pre-positioning pools in the event. It resolved NO. Despite Trump’s well-documented pro-crypto stance, digital assets went entirely unmentioned on Tuesday night. The contract carried the event’s second-largest open interest at 1.03 million.
Highest Inflation rounded out the top five with $541,092 in lifetime volume and resolved NO. Trump did address inflation at length, claiming his administration had driven core inflation to its lowest level in five years, but the specific phrase “highest inflation” didn’t appear in his remarks.
Just outside the top five, Trillion ($400,337, YES) and Cartel ($389,943, YES) both broke into significant volume. Trump spent a significant portion of the speech on his administration’s cartel enforcement, referencing the recent killing of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes. He touted his designation of cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and the declaration of fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. Cartel’s open interest grew 2,299% from 34,402 to 825,121.
Ethereum was a notable outlier: it carried the event’s largest open interest at 1.50 million contracts but generated only $163,128 in USD volume — the widest gap between OI and dollar volume in the event. Like Crypto/Bitcoin, it resolved NO.
Among lower-probability contracts, Discombobulator (NO) drew $239,734 in lifetime volume and peaked at 498,169 OI. Ballroom (NO) generated $332,120 across 16,713 trades. Martial Law (NO) — one of the speech-day openers — peaked at 179,319 contracts despite just $40,149 in volume.
The bigger picture
A year ago, betting on what a president might say during a speech wasn’t a real market. Now it’s an $11.97 million event with 391,000 trades and open interest rivaling mid-tier sports props. The SOTU mention markets turned a political speech into a live trading session — 85,622 trades in a single hour as traders priced every sentence in real time.
This is where prediction markets are headed. Every major political event — debates, press conferences, policy announcements — now has a liquid market attached to it. The 2026 midterms are eight months away, and if a single speech can generate this kind of volume, the cycle ahead is going to be something else entirely.
Volume data aggregated from Kalshi event contract KXTRUMPMENTION-26FEB28. Lifetime figures represent all trading activity from contract open through resolution. Open interest figures represent contract-level positions, not dollar-denominated exposure. Errors can be reported to [email protected]
Cheryle Shepstone
Cheryle is Director of Content and Strategy at DeFi Rate. She oversees the prediction market research, platform reviews, and editorial methodology behind every guide—from primary source verification through final fact-check. Before DeFi Rate, she led content and growth strategy at Catena Media, where she helped shape content and revenue strategy for regulated and financial markets. She has 20 years of experience in research and marketing strategy
