Approximately 30 UChicago undergraduates and Kalshi affiliates gathered on Monday morning outside the Loop headquarters of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group—the world’s largest financial derivatives trading marketplace—to protest the 1958 Onion Futures Act.

Kalshi, an online prediction market platform, paid for a bus to bring students from campus and provided branded merchandise and breakfast for the group, according to Adam Ash, a third-year undergraduate and co-founder of the For Our Futures student group.

For Our Futures—which is not formally recognized as an RSO—was formed earlier this year to advocate for the repeal of the 1958 act, which banned the trading of onion futures contracts. Futures markets allow traders to agree to buy or sell a given quantity of a product at a predetermined price and date.

A 2010 amendment to the act also banned trading on movies’ box office performance, which prevents prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket from allowing U.S. users to place bets on subjects such as a movie’s opening weekend. Onions and box office receipts are the only items banned from futures markets in the United States.

According to Ash, “four or five” Kalshi affiliates participated in the event. One videographer wearing Kalshi merchandise filmed the protest, while others distributed Kalshi-branded caps and T-shirts to both undergraduates and passersby. One affiliate, who declined to be named, identified themselves as a freelance brand ambassador and not a full-time Kalshi employee. Ash said that Kalshi had contacted For Our Futures two days prior and offered to pay for the bus and supplies for the event.

Kalshi also promoted the event on social media, with co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour reposting multiple For Our Futures posts on X alongside calls for the repeal of the Onion Futures Act. A video from the demonstration reposted by Mansour has since garnered more than 1 million views.

“This isn’t about prediction markets broadly,” Ash said. “This is about whether an onion farmer should be allowed to hedge his group, just like corn, wheat, and soy [farmers.] We welcome any support from Kalshi, any other individual, nonprofit, whatever.”

While Kalshi currently allows users to place bets on ratings and streaming rankings of movies and television shows, repealing the act would allow prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket to offer bets on future box office performances as well as onion prices. Polymarket already offers box office prediction bets to users outside of the U.S., with a current betting volume of over $20 million on the current top five bets.

The 2010 amendment to the Onion Futures Act was passed after lobbying from the Motion Picture Association of America, which argued that trading on movies’ performance could be vulnerable to insider manipulation and lacked the social utility of commodities hedging.

Ash said that while For Our Futures did not have “the firmest position” on whether financial speculation on movie box office results should be regulated, “if we’re going to be principled here, I’d like to believe that people know the risks [when] they’re getting into these markets, and we welcome any other sort of regulation to regulate box office movie tickets as a legitimate thing.”

The Onion Futures Act was enacted in response to market manipulation by two traders on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Sam Siegel and Vince Kosuga. The pair bought up approximately 99.3 percent of the available onion supply on the Mercantile Exchange, then took short positions and flooded the market, driving prices to less than 10 cents per 50-pound bag while making millions of dollars in profit.

Ash noted that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was “quintessential to the history of Chicago.”

On the sidewalk in front of CME Group’s headquarters, passersby appeared largely bemused by the protest. “I was confused at first, but this made my morning,” one pedestrian told the Maroon.

Other bystanders accepted free onions and asked participants about the reasoning for the protest, including whether it was “a promotion for the Onion,” a Chicago-based satirical newspaper.

“We wanted to support Chicago’s economy,” Ash said. “We want to support Chicago’s image. So, we thought there’s no better place to do it than here.”