As per a report, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating Polymarket which is a New York-based decentralized prediction market to check whether the platform is allowing its users to trade swaps or binary options and if it should be registered with the financial regulator.

According to the report due to the talk regarding a new round of funding with anonymous sources led the CFTC to start investigating Polymarket as this new funding could lead the company valued at $1 billion. Although the CFTC declined to say anything on this. The answer given by Polymarket doesn’t much confirm nor decline the existence of any probe. Entrepreneurs of Decentralized finance (Defi) have argued that smart contract interfaces shouldn’t have policies like centralized exchanges. From the platform, a spokesperson said, “Polymarket is firmly committed to complying with applicable laws and regulations and to providing information to regulators that will assist them with any inquiry.” As per a report, James McDonald, the former director of the CFTC enforcement division and partner at legal firm Sullivan & Cromwell was engaged by Polymarket to address the probe.

Other funding rounds by Polymarket:

In a funding round held in October 2020, where Meltem Demirors CoinShares CSO, Balaji Srinivasan former Coinbase CTO, and Naval Ravikant AngelList CEO took participation, Polymarket earned $4 million. It was that led by Polychain Capital.

Also Read |  Canadian company Purpose Investment files prospectus on crypto ETF with Canadian regulators

Other firms offering decentralized prediction markets:

At the beginning of October Polymarket along with Augur introduced a Polygon deployment of its platform. It offers an eclectic range of markets along with the speculation on COVID case numbers, CryptoPunks floor prices, and Donald Trump’s presidency. Crypto price predictions and sports forecasting are currently the main focus points for Augur markets.

Indrani Bose

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA