One of the largest crypto prediction markets is set to return to the United States, but will miss the gold rush of the NFL season start.
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan announced that the CFTC had lifted a final barrier, clearing his company to return to the United States on Wednesday. He linked to a CFTC no-action letter that exempted the exchange and clearing house Polymarket acquired, QCX, from certain reporting and record-keeping requirements.
Polymarket has been given the green light to go live in the USA by the @CFTC.
Credit to the Commission and Staff for their impressive work. This process has been accomplished in record timing.
Stay tuned https://t.co/NVziTixpqO
— Shayne Coplan 🦅 (@shayne_coplan) September 3, 2025
Final barrier to (re)entry removed for Polymarket
The letter allows the exchange to report market data to the CFTC without having to send it to a swap data repository (SDR). That saves Polymarket from having to link up with a third party and saves SDR fees.
Other prediction market platforms have asked for and received the same no-action relief. The CFTC has issued no-action letters for:
- Nadex – June 2017
- Cantor Futures Exchange – June 2017
- Kalshi (LedgerX) – April 2021
- ForecastEx – July 2024
- MIAXdx – September 2024
- Kalshi (Kalshi Klear) – October 2024
- Kalshi (Third-party clearing) – January 2025
- CME – July 2025
- Railbird – August 2025
It’s a small administrative change, but prediction markets now have their own data reporting system to the CFTC. The CFTC didn’t explicitly mention in the no-action letter that Polymarket was cleared to return, but Coplan seems to have been waiting on this no-action relief before making their official return announcement.
NFL trading is already underway, and breaking records
As Polymarket prepares for its U.S. re-entry, CFTC-regulated prediction market platform Kalshi already has heavy trading volume on football. Former Kalshi Head of Operations Noah Sterning noted that its market on the Notre Dame vs. Miami college football game on Sunday broke the platform’s trading volume record.
Notre Dame vs. Miami just made history on @Kalshi with a record $19,998,252 in trading volume, the most ever for a college football game! https://t.co/4Y253tn7TK
— Noah Sternig (@Nostroah) September 1, 2025
Kalshi has also self-certified contracts for point spreads, over/under totals, touchdown props, and is working on offering pre-built parlays. Brokerage firm Webull also just began offering Kalshi’s sports contracts on NFL games, in time for the Thursday night opener. Partnerships with retail brokerages like Robinhood and Webull help to position Kalshi to accept high volumes of trades going into football season.
Polymarket hasn’t announced its return date, but with professional sports beginning soon, each week’s delay is a missed customer acquisition opportunity. However, there is likely a long runway for future growth opportunities for CFTC-regulated prediction markets.
CFTC down to one commissioner
Democratic CFTC Commissioner Kristin Johnson’s last day was Wednesday. In her farewell remarks she delivered at Brookings, Johnson raised concerns about “too few guardrails and too little visibility into the prediction market landscape.”
The next day, Acting Chairman Caroline Pham released a statement announcing that “regulations proposed over the last several years that do not serve our mission and instead pile on excessive and unnecessary costs are being withdrawn.” Pham also hopes to “address unworkable Dodd-Frank rules and broad overreach.”
As the sole commissioner, she will have broader rulemaking authority. Brian Quintenz, her likely successor, is expected to enjoy similar authority to prioritize new products over creating new rules for the industry to follow.
