Forecast market faces regulatory storm: new bill aims to ban insider trading by officials

2026-01-04 01:30:14

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【BlockBeats】The prediction market has been quite lively lately. On January 4th, U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres plans to introduce the “2026 Financial Prediction Market Public Integrity Act,” directly targeting insider trading issues on prediction market platforms.

The core of this proposal is one sentence: prohibit federal officials, political appointees, and administrative staff from trading prediction market contracts related to government policies or political outcomes when they possess material non-public information. In simple terms, don’t use insider information to trade prediction contracts.

Upon hearing this news, prediction market platform Kalshi immediately responded, saying that they have long prohibited such behavior. Their PR account emphasized that the platform has explicitly banned insiders and decision-makers from trading using non-public information.

Why the sudden crackdown? There is a real case behind this: previously, a new account on Polymarket started buying large amounts of related contracts just hours before Trump announced a nighttime military operation to arrest Venezuelan President Maduro. The result? The user invested $32,500 and ultimately reaped over $400,000, with a return rate exceeding 1200%. Interestingly, this account had been lurking and trading prediction contracts related to U.S. intervention in Venezuela beforehand.

Once this incident was exposed, regulators couldn’t sit still. Although prediction markets are an interesting new development, if they become hotbeds for insider trading, serious action will be necessary.

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LiquidationAlert

· 01-06 23:32

Haha, now the officials are at a loss. Still trying to manipulate the market with insider information? Dream on.

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AirdropBlackHole

· 01-05 06:17

Well, things are getting serious now. The officials' "investment portfolios" need to be adjusted, huh.

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BoredRiceBall

· 01-04 18:11

Banning this and that again, do you really think officials are all like Lei Feng?

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ser_ngmi

· 01-04 02:00

Ha, here comes another bill to cut the leeks, nicely phrased as banning insider trading, but the key question is who will investigate and who will verify?

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BearMarketBro

· 01-04 02:00

Haha, you came too late. This should have been dealt with a long time ago. Politicians are using insider information to trade prediction contracts. Isn't this just insider trading under a different guise?

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ShibaOnTheRun

· 01-04 01:59

Now the officials' early planning dream is shattered haha. What happened to the promised information advantage?

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TokenTaxonomist

· 01-04 01:57

lol kalshi preempting the bill is peak "we already do it officer" energy... statistically speaking this won't stop anyone who actually matters tho

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SerNgmi

· 01-04 01:57

Haha, the politicians are finally starting to take action, but I bet this bill will just turn out to be another bureaucratic performance in the end.

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LiquidityWitch

· 01-04 01:52

ngl the real tea is always buried in the protocol mechanics... so they're finally catching the insiders gaming prediction markets? wild timing. feels like closing the barn door after the alphas already extracted, tbh. Kalshi virtue signaling hard rn lol

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