Unusual trading patterns on prediction platforms Kalshi and Polymarket have drawn scrutiny, with experts debating whether reported volumes reflect genuine trader activity.
The questions come amid explosive growth of these platforms, where traders bet on the outcome of real-world events, from elections to sports matches.
For beginners Trading volume is one of the main indicators of how liquid and reliable a market is; if some of that volume is artificial, traders may misjudge real interest in the market and the risks of entering or exiting positions.
Robinhood is rolling out an AI agent that can trade on behalf of users around the clock, alongside 10x leveraged crypto perpetual futures and expanded weekend trading hours.
The brokerage says the additions are part of a push to attract more active traders by expanding trading hours and adding automated, leveraged trading tools.
For beginners Leveraged perpetual futures let traders take positions that magnify both gains and losses, and automated AI agents trading around the clock remove the pause a human normally takes before placing a trade.
Prediction market platform Polymarket hired Lisa Mantil, who spent nearly three decades at Goldman Sachs, to attract large institutional traders.
Polymarket lets users bet on the outcomes of real-world events; hiring a veteran Wall Street banker is meant to help the platform move beyond its retail user base.
For beginners Prediction markets work like exchanges where a contract's price reflects the probability of an event; bringing in veteran Wall Street financiers is typically meant to build liquidity and trust among larger investors.
The Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Ohio and Tennessee in a dispute over the right to regulate sports-event contracts on prediction platform Kalshi, potentially setting up a Supreme Court case.
The ruling confirms that sports-event contracts fall under state regulation, not only federal oversight.
For beginners When courts disagree over whether a federal regulator or individual states should oversee a new financial product, the dispute often reaches the highest court, and the final ruling sets the rules for the whole industry.
A US appeals court ruled that Kalshi's sports-related prediction market contracts can be regulated by states, not only federal regulators.
It's the second such ruling in less than a month: a Sixth Circuit panel found these contracts aren't swaps — a type of derivative — and therefore aren't subject to exclusive federal oversight.
For beginners When courts decide a financial instrument isn't covered by federal rules, states can step in to regulate it — this is how the boundaries of oversight get drawn for new kinds of markets.
New York accused prediction-market platform Polymarket of running an illegal gambling operation and wants to block it from operating without a license and recover its gains.
The lawsuit mirrors a similar case filed against rival platform Kalshi in July on the same grounds.
For beginners Prediction markets let users bet on the outcome of real-world events; regulators are still debating whether to treat them as financial markets or as gambling, and that decision determines what rules and licenses apply to them.
Blockchain.com users will get access to tokenized US stocks and ETFs through NYSE's planned digital trading platform, the companies said.
The deal is part of a broader race among exchanges to offer new ways of trading assets to their clients.
For beginners Tokenized stocks are digital records of ownership of ordinary shares that trade on a blockchain. The idea is to combine familiar stock-market assets with the faster, more flexible settlement typical of crypto markets.
Austrian banking group Raiffeisen will offer crypto trading across 11 European markets, with Bitpanda providing the underlying infrastructure.
The partnership could extend digital asset access to about 18 million customers across the Raiffeisen network of banks.
For beginners When traditional retail banks add crypto trading through a partner, it lowers the barrier for ordinary bank customers to buy digital assets directly from an account they already trust, without needing a separate crypto exchange.
BitMEX, one of the pioneers of the perpetual-futures market, officially closed its trading operations but left withdrawals open for users.
The exchange, co-founded by Arthur Hayes, stopped trading and deposits after more than 11 years in operation.
For beginners Perpetual futures are derivative contracts without an expiry date that let traders bet on an asset's price movement using borrowed funds. The closure of one of the platforms that pioneered this product reflects growing competition and consolidation among crypto exchanges.
