Polymarket’s Customer Data Sought by U.S. CFTC Subpoena of Coinbase, Source Says

Coinbase Inc. (COIN) is warning prospects {that a} U.S. regulator is demanding details about interactions with prediction market agency Polymarket, based on an individual accustomed to the scenario, and Coinbase has despatched notices to prospects saying the change might should share that information.

There are copies of the emails shared with some prospects distributed on social media sitesand people warnings in regards to the U.S. Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC) requests are correct, the particular person mentioned. The US derivatives regulator has been waging a protracted authorized battle with prediction market companies, and this newest transfer comes simply days earlier than the company’s management is about to flip from Democratic to Republican when President-elect Donald Trump takes workplace.

“Once we obtain requests for data from a authorities, every request is fastidiously reviewed by a workforce of educated consultants utilizing established procedures to find out its authorized sufficiency,” a Coinbase spokesperson mentioned in an announcement by e e mail, though the corporate declined to acknowledge receipt of the request. particular summons. “The place applicable, we’ll attempt to restrict requests which can be too broad or obscure to offer a extra appropriately tailor-made response, and in some circumstances we might object to offering any data in any respect.”

The CFTC misplaced its first case towards the prediction market firm Kalshi when a US federal decide dominated late final yr that the company couldn’t ban the corporate from recording election contracts. Nonetheless, the regulator shortly appealed to a better courtroom, and Polymarket argued in that new authorized dispute that solely Congress can halt election betting.

Learn extra: US Election Betting: Federal Courtroom Made a Mistake in Letting Kalshi Launch Prediction Markets, Says CFTC

Neither the CFTC nor Polymarket instantly responded to a request for touch upon buyer data assortment efforts.

On January 20, Trump will win again the White Home, and he’ll have the ability to appoint a brand new chairman to interchange Rostin Behnam, who led the CFTC throughout its lengthy authorized dispute with the prediction firms. Incumbent Republican commissioners Caroline Pham and Summer time Mersinger have attracted consideration as potential candidates for the open chairmanship, as has former Commissioner Brian Quintenz.