The Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC), a US monetary regulator, issued a no-action letter to crypto derivatives trade Bitnomial on Thursday, clearing the best way for the trade to supply occasion contracts and prediction markets.
The CFTC letter alleviates Bitnomial from the strict reporting necessities for asset swaps beneath present US guidelines, a hurdle that’s impractical for fast-moving platforms like prediction markets, the place tens of 1000’s of those swaps might happen in a day.
Bitnomial should nonetheless present clear consumer-facing knowledge on its web site, together with timestamps and gross sales knowledge for contract markets, and supply related knowledge to the CFTC when requested, based on the phrases of the letter.
All positions should even be collateralized, which means they can’t be leveraged and should be backed 1:1 to make sure liquidity and stop cascading liquidations that threaten the platform’s solvency.
The no-action letter displays the rising acceptance of prediction markets from US regulators, as blockchain expertise opens up new monetary use instances that weren’t attainable with legacy monetary infrastructure.
Associated: Bitnomial features CFTC approval to launch prediction markets in US
Prediction markets achieve steam within the US since 2024
Prediction markets gained vital momentum within the US throughout the 2024 elections, with proponents arguing that they’re higher than polled knowledge at forecasting outcomes.
Since that point, prediction market platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi have seen elevated curiosity from institutional buyers and damaged into the cultural zeitgeist.
In September 2025, Kalshi and Polymarket have been featured in a South Park episode, a long-running satirical present within the US that touches on main information occasions and cultural tendencies.
The next month, Intercontinental Trade (ICE), the proprietor of the New York Inventory Trade, invested $2 billion in Polymarket at a $9 billion valuation.
Crypto trade Coinbase agreed to amass The Clearing Firm, a prediction market startup, in December, as a part of its push into prediction markets.
The deal is anticipated to shut in January 2026, which is the yr of the US midterm elections, which can seemingly increase buying and selling quantity on prediction markets because the election season kicks off.
Journal: How crypto legal guidelines modified in 2025 — and the way they’ll change in 2026