Polymarket’s founder says the company has “the green light to go live in the USA,” after regulator the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) published a letter concerning some of the prediction market’s record-keeping requirements.
On Wednesday, the CFTC published a “no-action letter” with regard to Polymarket US. In a no-action letter, the CFTC tells an exchange that it will not face regulatory action for specific activities, without outright condoning those activities.
The new letter itself concerns Polymarket’s ability to report certain trades that are legally classified as “swaps” as if they are options instead, a technical matter of recordkeeping, rather than something more central to Polymarket’s operations.
However, it appears to be the last step needed in order for the exchange to be fully approved, at least from CEO and Founder Shayne Coplan’s perspective.
After the CFTC published the no-action letter, Coplan posted on social media site X that the site had “been given the green light to go live in the USA by the @CFTC.”
The CFTC’s list of rulebook filings show that all of Polymarket’s documents have been certified, except for a revised edition of its rulebook. That is eight days into the CFTC’s 10-day review period.
However, an earlier version of the rulebook had been certified, so Polymarket may be permitted to launch as long as it initially uses the original rulebook.
The main difference between the two books is that the new one added rules about trade orders that can be placed with instructions to cancel an order if it hasn’t been matched by a certain point. It is not yet clear whether Polymarket could initially launch without this feature, requiring manual cancellation of unmatched trades instead, and then introduce it once the new rules are approved.
No further details of a U.S. launch date have been provided. A waitlist for U.S. customers has been available since early August, but customers on the waitlist have not yet been notified of any change. Clicking an American flag on the Polymarket homepage produces a message that says, “We’re working hard to get the U.S. platform ready for launch,” and directs users to the waitlist, as it did before the CFTC letter.
Approval could come just in time for the NFL season, which is set to kick off Thursday before a full slate of games on Sunday. The opening Sunday of the season is typically among the biggest days on the sports betting calendar, and likely to be a record day for rival prediction market Kalshi.
Polymarket buys its way back into US
Polymarket bypassed the normal years-long period of applying for CFTC registration by instead acquiring an exchange that was already registered, named QCEX, in July.
It then announced it was returning to the U.S. and opened a waitlist for American customers, who are not allowed to use the site at the moment.
Last year, the Department of Justice launched an investigstion into the company, examining whether it was continuing to take business from the U.S. However, that probe was dropped in July, in a move that appeared to open the door to Polymarket obtaining U.S. regulatory approval.
Polymarket is the largest prediction market globally. According to Polymarket Analytics, which is not affiliated with the exchange, total trading volume on active markets on the site comes to $853.5 million, three times as much as on Kalshi, which is only available in the U.S.
When it does launch, the Polymarket U.S. site may be fenced off from the remainder of the site in some way, as CFTC rules require exchanges to perform certain know-your-customer checks on all participants in the exchange, regardless of national origin. It may not be possible or worth the cost for Polymarket to perform these checks on international customers.
Polymarket may also still need to self-certify its own contracts before it can launch them.
It has already been a busy week in prediction market news, as companies attempt to enter the space or expand their offerings ahead of the NFL season. Tuesday, fantasy and sports betting operator Underdog announced that it would offer sports event contracts in 16 states, as a “tech provider” to Crypto.com. The same day, Kalshi self-certified to offer a new type of contract that appears to cover parlays.
Earlier Wednesday, Webull started offering its customers access to Kalshi’s football event contracts.
The stock trading app has been partnered with Kalshi since February, but the focus has been on non-sports contracts.
