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CFTC Pleads With Judge to Block Kalshi Election Contracts for 14 Days
The agency says it can't make "an informed decision" about whether to appeal the judge's decision in Kalshi's favor until it knows her as-yet-unpublished rationale.
Hours after losing a long-running court case filed by U.S. prediction market platform Kalshi, regulators are making a hail Mary pass.
Late Friday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed an emergency motion asking a federal judge to grant a temporary stay of her decision in Kalshi's favor. The stay would prevent Kalshi from listing election markets for at least 14 days.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Last year, the CFTC forbade Kalshi from listing contracts betting on which party would control each house of Congress after the November election. Such contracts, the agency said, would amount to unlawful gaming and would be "contrary to the public interest." Kalshi then sued, calling the regulator's decision "arbitrary [and] capricious."
In a ruling handed down Friday, Judge Jia M. Cobb, of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, sided with Kalshi but did not give her rationale, which she said she would spell out in a subsequent opinion. She did not say when that opinion would be published.
Kalshi triumphantly declared on its website: "We did it! U.S. election markets are coming to Kalshi."
The CFTC then filed its emergency motion asking Cobb to stay her order for 14 days following publication of the opinion.
"Without the benefit of the Court’s reasoning, the CFTC is unable to make an informed decision whether to appeal, nor is it able to fully brief a motion for stay pending any forthcoming appeal," the agency wrote.
If granted, the stay would mean Kalshi wouldn't be allowed to list its election markets until late September at the earliest. The company, which settles trades in U.S. dollars, has been locked out of this year's election betting boom, dominated by crypto-based rival Polymarket, which is barred from serving U.S. residents under its own settlement with the CFTC.
A Kalshi spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday.
Read more: Kalshi Cleared to Offer Congressional Prediction Markets in Victory Against CFTC
Marc Hochstein
As Deputy Editor-in-Chief for Features, Opinion, Ethics and Standards, Marc oversaw CoinDesk's long-form content, set editorial policies and acted as the ombudsman for our industry-leading newsroom. He also spearheaded our nascent coverage of prediction markets and helped compile The Node, our daily email newsletter rounding up the biggest stories in crypto.
From November 2022 to June 2024 Marc was the Executive Editor of Consensus, CoinDesk's flagship annual event. He joined CoinDesk in 2017 as a managing editor and has steadily added responsibilities over the years.
Marc is a veteran journalist with more than 25 years' experience, including 17 years at the trade publication American Banker, the last three as editor-in-chief, where he was responsible for some of the earliest mainstream news coverage of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
DISCLOSURE: Marc holds BTC above CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000; marginal amounts of ETH, SOL, XMR, ZEC, MATIC and EGIRL; an Urbit planet (~fodrex-malmev); two ENS domain names (MarcHochstein.eth and MarcusHNYC.eth); and NFTs from the Oekaki (pictured), Lil Skribblers, SSRWives, and Gwar collections.
