Kalshi Is Launching the Product Coinbase Cannot Sell in the US
The $11 billion prediction market operator walks into crypto perpetuals through a CFTC door that Coinbase and Robinhood still cannot open. Polymarket beat it to market by six days.
Polymarket is the largest decentralized prediction market by trading volume and the platform that turned event-based betting into one of the most watched corners of crypto. The coverage here tracks what matters: volume and open interest on major markets covering elections, geopolitics, court rulings, sports, and macro events, regulatory positioning as the platform navigates CFTC, state gambling regulators, and international jurisdictions with different stances on prediction markets, partnership and listing deals bringing Polymarket access into mainstream platforms like X, the oracle and resolution disputes that occasionally turn into community fights when contested events have ambiguous outcomes, the large position trackers who occasionally turn small bets into life-changing returns when events resolve in their favor, and the USDC integration that makes the platform accessible to anyone with a wallet. Polymarket has become a reference price for political events. Newsrooms cite it. Hedge funds watch it. Politicians complain about it. The platform’s predictions occasionally beat traditional polling by significant margins, which has accelerated both adoption and regulatory scrutiny. Coinliva covers the trades that moved markets, the regulatory battles, the partnership announcements, and the broader debate over whether prediction markets actually price information better than the systems they are starting to displace.
The $11 billion prediction market operator walks into crypto perpetuals through a CFTC door that Coinbase and Robinhood still cannot open. Polymarket beat it to market by six days.
A new Bitget Wallet and Polymarket report shows monthly prediction market volume hit $25.7 billion in March, up from $1.9 billion a year earlier. Retail users drove over 80% of the activity, and the average user is now active four times more often than they were three months ago.
Attorney General Letitia James wants triple damages, customer restitution, and a ban on under-21 wagering. Coinbase stock fell 6% as the lawsuit landed.
Polymarket hired Chainalysis on April 30 to build an onchain anomaly detection system, days after a U.S. Green Beret pleaded not guilty to a $400,000 insider bet. A new ACDC report shows military markets win at four times the normal longshot rate.
The sector dropped 66% from March's record. But the real story is who grabbed the crown while everyone was looking the other way.
A compromised private key let an attacker automate withdrawals from Polymarket's UMA CTF Adapter on Polygon. ZachXBT flagged it first. Losses passed $700,000 before the team responded. Polymarket says user funds are safe. The attacker has already split the proceeds across 15 wallets.
The New York Times published an investigation on Sunday that lands like a grenade in the middle of the prediction market debate. The core finding: career…
A Polymarket contract asking whether Prabowo Subianto would leave power before 2029 went live on May 21. By May 22, Indonesia's Ministry of Communication had blocked the site nationwide. The government froze 33,000 bank accounts linked to online betting earlier this year. This is the second Asian country to ban Polymarket in a single week.
Spain's Consumer Rights Ministry ordered ISPs to block both platforms after finding they operate without gambling licenses. The ban follows a Polymarket contract on PM Sanchez leaving office and a Kalshi market pricing his exit at 29%. The block list now includes India, Indonesia, Brazil, Ukraine, France, Belgium, Australia, Portugal, Argentina, the Netherlands, and Spain.
Chairman Mike Selig told a FINRA audience that the agency has signed a data-sharing deal with MLB and is now talking to every pro league about insider trading on prediction markets. The NFL, historically resistant, is finally at the table.
India's Ministry of Electronics ordered ISPs to block Polymarket. The site is already unreachable for Indian users. Local media reports say Kalshi is next. The government classifies all prediction markets as illegal online gambling.
While regulators blocked Polymarket in India, Indonesia, and Spain this week, Hyperliquid quietly shipped HIP-4 outcome contracts for real-world events. Users can now bet on CPI prints and Fed decisions from the same account they use for crypto perps. No external oracle. No UMA. Validators settle everything.
The Finance Ministry blocked access to all major prediction market platforms while the central bank moved to outlaw the underlying derivative contracts.