Considerations over insider buying and selling on prediction markets have intensified after a sequence of high-profile bets on geopolitical occasions, prompting recent questions over whether or not it’s even possible to curb such practices within the rising trade sector.
Stopping insider buying and selling is realistically attainable solely on prediction markets making use of Know Your Buyer (KYC) measures, in keeping with Austin Weiler, a analysis analyst on the blockchain intelligence agency Messari.
“For KYC’d platforms, the simplest mechanism is to limit entry upfront for customers to particular markets,” Weiler advised Cointelegraph, including that state actors might be restricted from political or geopolitical markets.
“This doesn’t totally eradicate abuse, since insiders can nonetheless share info with third events, nevertheless it provides an vital impediment and raises enforcement requirements,” he famous.
The issue with non-KYC prediction markets
For non-KYC, or totally onchain prediction markets, enforcement is extraordinarily difficult and, in some instances, “almost unattainable,” Weiler stated.
When wallets usually are not linked to real-world identities, there is no such thing as a dependable option to determine merchants or decide whether or not they have entry to materials private info (MPNI), he stated.
“Prediction markets can try to watch uncommon buying and selling habits, cap commerce sizes, or sluggish buying and selling throughout delicate geopolitical intervals. Nonetheless, these measures are simply bypassed,” Weiler stated, including:
“Bans concentrating on authorities officers are solely realistically enforceable in KYC-based programs. Whereas all onchain exercise is clear, transparency alone doesn’t remedy the attribution downside. With out identification verification, this can be very troublesome to hyperlink an onchain pockets to a selected official, state actor, or insider with confidence.”
Kalshi, Polymarket, Opinion: Who requires KYC and the way?
On the time of writing, KYC necessities fluctuate extensively throughout established prediction platforms resembling Kalshi and Polymarket, whereas decentralized alternate options don’t seem to require identification checks, or can not technically help them.
Kalshi enforces KYC necessities as a part of its regulated mannequin beneath the authority of the US Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee. On its sign-up web page, Kalshi states that it requires fundamental private info from customers and should request additional verification utilizing an identification doc.
Polymarket applies KYC to its US-based customers, whereas non-US variations of the platform function with out obligatory identification checks, with entry reportedly obtainable by way of VPN, in accordance to social media stories. The platform doesn’t publicly affirm this in its consumer information.
Opinion, a decentralized prediction market backed by YZi Labs, an organization linked to the previous Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, gives no public info on KYC necessities.
Cointelegraph approached Kalshi, Polymarket and Opinion for remark concerning KYC necessities however had not obtained any response on the time of publication.
Associated: Tennessee sends cease-and-desist letters to Kalshi, Polymarket, Crypto.com
The information comes amid intense scrutiny of main prediction market platforms following high-profile bets tied to geopolitical occasions in Venezuela, together with stories of an nameless dealer turning $30,000 into greater than $400,000 simply hours earlier than US forces captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Some US lawmakers, together with Consultant Ritchie Torres, have backed laws together with the Public Integrity in Monetary Prediction Markets Act of 2026, geared toward barring authorities officers from buying and selling on prediction markets once they maintain materials nonpublic info.
Journal: How crypto legal guidelines modified in 2025 — and the way they’ll change in 2026
