Kalshi’s year-end WTI high ladder asks whether the U.S. crude benchmark’s front-month settle will print above a set of dollar levels sometime before December 31 — not where oil closes tonight. Traders leave $115.01 or above near a coin flip and price $120.01 or above in the high 30s after this week’s Middle East supply scare.
You’re betting on how high West Texas Intermediate gets, measured by ICE’s front-month daily settlement prices, between now and the end of 2026. Each row is its own Yes/No bet: did the maximum settle clear this dollar level at any point before year-end? The lines are nested, not a single winner-take-all race. If the high settle of the year is $118, then $115.01 or above pays Yes and $120.01 or above pays No on that same path.
| Your bet | Chance | Wins if… | $100 bet pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| $115.01 or above | 47.5% | max WTI front-month settle clears $115.01 by Dec 31 | ~$211 |
| $120.01 or above | 39.6% | max WTI front-month settle clears $120.01 by Dec 31 | ~$253 |
| $140.01 or above | 22.7% | max WTI front-month settle clears $140.01 by Dec 31 | ~$441 |
| $150.01 or above | 21.2% | max WTI front-month settle clears $150.01 by Dec 31 | ~$472 |
Other bets on the same year-high path — $125, $130, $135 — sit between those rows and pay or miss on the same ICE maximum.
This board moves when the market revises how long Middle East shipping disruptions can keep a war premium in crude. Investing News Network reported that on Thursday, July 23, Brent settled at $100.69 — its first close above $100 since May — after Houthi claims of strikes on Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, with Strait of Hormuz traffic already constrained. WTI closed at $92.19 the same day. Economic Times, citing Goldman Sachs, said Brent could revisit $120 if Hormuz disruptions persist, while Goldman’s base case still assumes eventual easing toward roughly $80 Brent in the fourth quarter.
Fresh chokepoint incidents, a durable ceasefire, or a multi-week unwind of Red Sea / Hormuz risk are the clean levers. Spot sitting in the high-$80s / around $90 after Friday’s fade does not settle the year-high question — only an ICE front-month settle above the strike does.
At 47.5%, $115.01 or above is nearly even money that this year’s high WTI front-month settle will clear $115 before December 31. A $100 Yes pays about $211 if it does.
$120.01 or above at 39.6% is the next nested ask on the same path: will the high clear $120, not merely $115? The seven-day path shows both strikes climbing — $115 from 34.1% to 47.5%, $120 from 31.9% to 39.6% — as this week’s supply scare reopened upside scenarios traders had marked down after mid-June relief.
The arithmetic gap is thin. From a mid-$90s neighborhood, $115 is a revisiting of March’s spike zone; $120 is a few dollars past that zone on the same war-premium ladder.
About $44K traded across the ladder in 24 hours, against more than $6M in lifetime volume — deep enough that the mid-ladder asks have been walked higher with the geopolitics, not stuck on a handful of resting orders.