DoubleZero co-founder addresses whether faster Kalshi data disadvantages retail traders

DoubleZero co-founder Austin Federa has defended open access to Kalshi's faster election-market data feed while confirming that the infrastructure remains read-only and provides no way to submit or execute trades.
Summary

• DoubleZero Edge distributes Kalshi order-book data but does not route or execute orders.
• Any participant can subscribe to the same feed, according to co-founder Austin Federa.
• Dedicated fiber and multicast replace the public-internet delivery used by Kalshi's API and WebSocket.
• DoubleZero will publish transport benchmarks but will leave market-quality reporting to Kalshi.

Austin Federa told crypto.news that professional traders tend to compete on speed with each other, while tighter competition between market makers can produce narrower spreads and better prices for other participants.

Federa was responding to concerns that professional firms receiving faster information could gain an advantage over retail users who continue to access Kalshi through slower public-internet connections.

"Our answer to the imbalance concern is open access: the fastest data path shouldn't be private rails and at unreachable price-levels. By placing Kalshi election market data over DoubleZero rails, anyone, from anywhere, can subscribe to the same stream," Federa said.

DoubleZero announced on Sep. 9 that Kalshi's election and politics markets had become available through DoubleZero Edge ahead of the U.S. election season. The service distributes Kalshi's full election order book, including bids, offers and completed trades, over a dedicated fiber network.
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DoubleZero says open access addresses the retail gap

Although subscribers receive data faster than users relying on ordinary internet routes, Federa said access to the feed is not restricted to a selected group of trading firms.

Professional market makers may use the information to update their quotes more quickly, but Federa argued that competition among such firms can benefit other users through tighter spreads and improved prices. DoubleZero has not yet released data showing whether the Kalshi integration has changed either measure.

Access still requires a paid subscription. According to Federa, a customer can buy the feed through DoubleZero's website without entering a traditional sales process. The subscription is linked to a cryptographic identity and the internet address of the machine receiving the data.

Once subscribed, the customer installs a connector using a single command. Federa said the software configures the receiving machine, creates a private tunnel into DoubleZero's network, and begins running the connection.

A status command allows the subscriber to check whether the tunnel is active and which data channels the machine has joined. The connector then converts the broadcast into JSON and serves the information locally, allowing a trading system to read live instruments, quotes, and order-book updates.

Kalshi faces an uneven legal environment across the United States even as its federally regulated markets expand. As crypto.news reported on Sep. 8, conflicting state court rulings could divide prediction-market access and liquidity between states.

Aaron Courtney, chief compliance officer at ProphetX, said in the earlier report that the conflicting decisions could leave users in some states with access to federally regulated platforms while users elsewhere remain restricted. The dispute centers on whether federal oversight of designated contract markets prevents states from applying their own gambling laws.

Kalshi orders cannot be executed through DoubleZero Edge

While traders can feed DoubleZero's data into their own systems, Federa stressed that the product does not provide an order-entry function.

"DoubleZero Edge is a read-only distribution platform for market data into a trader's tech stack. DoubleZero Edge has no execution functionality."

Participants cannot use the infrastructure to submit, route, or complete trades. Orders must still pass through Kalshi's trading systems, leaving DoubleZero to operate solely as the transport layer between the source data and subscribers.

Federa compared the setup with two established methods for receiving exchange information. Under the public model, firms connect to Kalshi's API or WebSocket through the open internet, request updates, and assemble their own view of the order book.

Each company maintains its own connection, receives its own copy of the data, and manages the systems needed to turn separate responses into a usable market view. Network routes and delivery times may differ because the information passes through the public internet.

Traditional exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and CME use another model. According to Federa, they publish data once and broadcast it to subscribers over private fiber through a process known as multicast.

Kalshi's feed applies the second model to a prediction market, he said. Data leaves Kalshi through the direct interface it provides to institutional participants, travels across DoubleZero's dedicated fiber network and reaches subscribers through one broadcast.

Every subscriber is intended to receive the same sequenced message at the same time, reducing the work each firm must perform to collect and rebuild the order book.

Dedicated fiber changes how Kalshi data reaches traders

Federa said DoubleZero receives information through the fastest direct interface Kalshi makes available to institutional users. From there, Edge uses dedicated fiber and multicast, while Kalshi's existing public API and WebSocket remain dependent on public-internet routes.

DoubleZero has not supplied figures showing the exact latency difference between the services. According to Federa, the company will release benchmark data as results become available during the initial product-testing phase.

Subscribers can choose between top-of-book data, which contains the best available bid and offer, and full-depth data containing every price level. DoubleZero had already offered separate feeds for Kalshi's sports markets and crypto perpetual futures before adding election and politics contracts.

Kalshi has continued adding products that place it within both prediction markets and regulated U.S. derivatives trading. On Sep. 4, the exchange added five crypto perpetuals tied to BNB, Cardano, Worldcoin, Aave, and Venice Token.

The additions increased its lineup to Bitcoin and 17 altcoin perpetual contracts, according to the earlier report. Kalshi operates as a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated designated contract market, and its dollar-margined perpetuals give U.S. traders long or short price exposure without requiring them to hold the underlying tokens.

Kalshi's event contracts and crypto derivatives remain subject to separate regulatory and legal questions. CME Group has challenged the CFTC's treatment of Kalshi's Bitcoin perpetual contract, arguing that the product should fall under rules for swaps instead of conventional futures.

DoubleZero will measure delivery instead of Kalshi's markets

To assess Edge, DoubleZero will track how quickly an update moves from its source to subscribers, how consistently users receive the same sequenced order book, and how fresh the delivered information remains compared with public-internet feeds.

Federa separated those transport measures from spreads, order-book depth, and price behavior during major political events. Kalshi controls the trading venue, he said, while DoubleZero only delivers its data.

Faster and cleaner information could help market makers adjust quotes more quickly, according to Federa, but he said DoubleZero would not use Kalshi's spread or depth figures as performance measures for Edge.

"We will publish data on the delivery layer," Federa said. "We will not publish venue market-quality scorecards from DoubleZero."

Market integrity has received added attention as Kalshi expands contracts tied to politics and other real-world events. On Aug. 31, the exchange banned George Santos after its compliance department found that he had traded contracts based on whether he would attend President Donald Trump's 2026 State of the Union address.

Kalshi said Santos earned $17,839.57 after trading both sides of the attendance market while controlling information about his plans. The exchange imposed a $71,356 penalty and permanently barred him from its platform, while a separate CFTC settlement ordered him to disgorge $17,569.98, pay a $17,500 civil penalty and stop trading on CFTC-registered venues for three years.

According to the same report, Kalshi said it conducted more than 150 investigations in the first quarter of 2026, blocked over 100 suspected insider-trading attempts and referred 20 cases to law enforcement.
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