🐳 Daily Edition: The Prediction Market Wars

The prediction market wars are heating up as volumes on Polymarket and Kalshi continue to rise, with both rapidly growing in valuation as well as mindshare. For those less familiar with these platforms, prediction markets initially came to be as a regulatory arbitrage based on their decentralized nature, allowing companies to offer betting markets without going through the approval and licensing processes a casino or sports book would typically have to go through.

Kalshi decided to go another direction in achieving full regulatory status throughout the US whereas Polymarket has stuck to its crypto roots onchain, hence why you need a VPN to access Polymarket from the US and not for Kalshi. The regulatory licensing Kalshi has require it to KYC users however, which is a big reason why crypto traders have historically picked Polymarket. Many were quick to call the death of prediction markets as volumes fell sharply after the 2024 US Presidential Election concluded, however in the last few weeks we’ve seen numbers return to those levels largely due to a rise sports betting.

Knowing that there are already several major sports books like DraftKings and FanDuel which dominate the US market, you might imagine it’d be hard for new entrants to take any meaningful market share. Well, it’s clear the market thinks otherwise, as FanDuel owner Flutter Entertainment has already dropped over 10% since October started. Adding further fuel to the flame, it seems Polymarket CEO and Founder Shayne Coplan confirmed a future Polymarket token and airdrop today. With NYSE parent company ICE having just disclosed their $2B investment in Polymarket at a $9B valuation, a POLY airdrop could be massive.

Cobie calls it like it is

The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!

The Majors

• BlackRock’s most profitable ETF is a nearly $100 billion Bitcoin giant

Alt Coins and Stocks

• Coinbase is hiring a ‘token & governance research specialist’ for its Base team

Prediction Markets

• Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan is youngest ‘self-made’ billionaire, Bloomberg says

New Launches

• Solana DeFi exchange Jupiter to launch native stablecoin

• CZ Family Office kickstarts $1 Billion builder fund on BNB

Interested in how the regulatory environment is evolving for crypto companies in the US? Learn how DUNA could reshape how we operate: