coindesk.com
Polymarket is seeking approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to bring its main prediction market back to U.S. users.
The company has discussed lifting its ban on U.S.-based traders with CFTC officials in recent weeks, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the talks. The ban has been in place since Polymarket reached a 2022 settlement with the agency and moved its main exchange overseas.
The CFTC cleared a separate U.S.-only Polymarket platform last November after the company acquired a registered exchange. That site has yet to fully launch.
Prediction markets let users trade contracts tied to future events, such as elections, sports games or economic data. These markets have drawn increasing scrutiny from various states, which argue these function as unlicensed gambling operations.
The CFTC would need to vote before it could remove Polymarkt’s U.S. block. That process may be simpler now because four commission seats are vacant, leaving Chairman Michael Selig as the only sitting commissioner.
Selig has in the past defended that states do not have the ability to police prediction markets, whose authority falls under the CFTC’s purview.
The talks also come after authorities accused a soldier of using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access Polymarket’s international exchange and make more than $400,000 from trades based on classified information.
Polymarket declined to comment.