KEY POINTS
- Polymarket disallowed Americans from betting on its event contracts after a $1.4M settlement with the CFTC
- Coplan signaled that Polymarket is working on a comeback after it signaled Trump's win in the 2024 US elections
- The Polymarket CEO also revealed that he received calls from people at Mar-a-Lago
Polymarket, the popular decentralized market prediction platform that signaled a Donald Trump victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential race, is planning a comeback to the country that it exited in 2020 to comply with a regulatory settlement.
CEO Shayne Coplan confirmed this in a Thursday interview with CNBC's Squawk Box, wherein he discussed the platform's journey from being widely doubted to being celebrated after Trump's sweeping victory.
Why Americans Can't Bet on Polymarket
U.S. residents aren't supposed to be betting on Polymarket after the platform shut out Americans in 2022 to comply to the provisions of a settlement with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
The CFTC filed a legal complaint over Polymarket's alleged offers of "off-exchange event-based binary options contracts and failure to obtain designation as a designated contract market (DCM) or registration as a swap execution facility (SEF).
The regulator, which is separate from the SEC, ordered the platform to pay $1.4 million in civil monetary penalties and "wind down" markets that "do not comply with the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA)."
After the settlement, Polymarket then disallowed its trading functionality for American users, while users all around the world were still able to bet on the platform's event contracts with their crypto.
Coplan Hints US Return is Inevitable
When asked how important it is for Polymarket to be in the U.S., Coplan said, "it's part of the plan," suggesting that the company is already working to lift the trading ban on American users.
.@andrewrsorkin: How important is it for you to be in the U.S. market?
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) November 7, 2024
Polymarket's @shayne_coplan: "It's part of the plan." pic.twitter.com/wmZTkNVCOv
He went on to reveal that he received "calls from Mar-a-Lago" to inform him that people from within the Trump-owned private club in Florida "were looking at Polymarket" as the voting numbers started coming in Tuesday night.
On Wednesday, the platform said Polymarket's data "proved the wisdom of markets over the polls, the media, and the pundits," indicating vindication following doubts and criticism about data accuracy in the lead-up to the U.S. elections.
Polymarket bettors consistently had Trump in the lead over Kamala Harris, especially in the few days before the general elections.
