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.
Prediction markets moved from niche experiment to one of the most watched corners of crypto in a single cycle. The major venues now route hundreds of millions in volume on elections, geopolitics, court rulings, and macro events, and the regulatory question has shifted from “will these be allowed” to “who gets to run them and under what license.” The coverage here tracks the full landscape: volume and open interest across the major venues, regulatory battles with the CFTC and state gambling regulators, partnership deals bringing event contracts into mainstream brokerage and social media platforms, liquidity dynamics on contested events, the oracle and resolution disputes that occasionally turn into litigation, and the broader question of whether these venues actually price information better than traditional polling and forecasting.
The 2024 U.S. election was the inflection point. The leading crypto-native venue processed over $3.6 billion in election volume and called the result before mainstream media networks, which forced regulators, journalists, and political consultants to take the category seriously for the first time. The compliant alternative pursued a different path, securing CFTC-regulated event contract status and positioning as the U.S. domestic option. The two models now sit in different regulatory boxes, target different user bases, and compete for the same headline events.
The legal landscape in 2026 is more contested than the volume numbers suggest. State attorneys general from Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and others have argued that event contracts are gambling under state law, regardless of CFTC approval. The CFTC sued New York on the same day 38 state AGs filed in support of a parallel Massachusetts case, drawing the federal-state preemption fight directly into the courts. Brazil banned prediction markets outright in a single regulatory move. Romania blocked 300 sites and launched a treatment fund framing the activity as gambling addiction. The line between regulated derivative and illegal gaming is being drawn jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and every drawing has consequences for which platforms can operate where.
The partnership wave has changed the distribution layer. Major U.S. exchanges and brokerages launched event contracts after years of saying they could not. Social media platforms began integrating cashtag-driven prediction products, with one launch pulling in $1 billion in volume within 48 hours. Traditional financial venues partnered with casino operators and stock exchanges to build U.S. compliant alternatives. The category is no longer the domain of crypto-native users alone — it has become a feature in mainstream brokerage and social media products, which is what makes the regulatory questions urgent.
Coinliva covers the trades that moved markets, the wallets that made or lost serious money on a single event, the legal challenges from state attorneys general, the partnership deals reshaping distribution, and the structural debates about whether prediction markets are derivatives, gambling, or something new entirely. We track research on accuracy — including the recent finding that just 3% of traders drive most of the price discovery, not the crowd consensus the platforms market on stage. The line keeps shifting. We follow where it lands.
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.
Dropped lawsuits, new ETFs, a token taxonomy, and a joint framework with the CFTC. Paul Atkins delivered almost everything the crypto industry asked for. But prediction markets just landed on his desk as an unresolved jurisdictional fight.
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 CFTC handed Gemini a clearinghouse license on April 30. The stock popped 6%. The more interesting question is why crypto firms have started paying $550 million each just to own one of these things.
HIP-4 went live on mainnet with zero fees to open and a 1 million HYPE staking requirement for builders. Polymarket charges up to 2% on winners. That gap is the entire pitch.
The venture capital giant filed an 18-page letter telling federal regulators to hold the line. On the other side: a coalition of attorneys general from nearly every state in the country.
The sector dropped 66% from March's record. But the real story is who grabbed the crown while everyone was looking the other way.
Three funding rounds in seven months. Annualized volume tripled to $178 billion. Five states are suing it. Coatue, Sequoia, and Morgan Stanley all wrote checks anyway.
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.
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.
818,334 BTC. A $12.5 billion Q1 loss. An 11.5% dividend on preferred stock that needs to be paid somehow. Polymarket odds on a Bitcoin sale by year-end jumped from 10% to 82% in one week.
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.