Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, October 3rd, and today we are talking about the legality of prediction markets in the United States.

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pod. All right, friends, well, today we are talking about something that is slightly perhaps

orthogonal from the main crypto topics we cover, because ultimately it's about how people

have control and autonomy over what they spend their money on and how they interact with services

and markets on the internet. Specifically Specifically what we are talking about is prediction

market platform Kalshi that has been through a legal roller coaster. They won their court case

against the CFTC, with the judge ruling that the regulator had stepped far outside their

jurisdiction in blocking political prediction markets, and based on that order, Kalshi had

launched a market on the result of the presidential election. A few hours later, however,

the CFTC filed an appeal and obtained an administrative stay of the decision. Now, the appeals court has dissolved the stay, allowing Kalshi to relaunch their markets with just a month left until the

election. The judge found that the CFTC had failed to show that the public will, quote,

suffer irreparable injury if the stay is not in place and therefore removed it.

The appeal will presumably still go ahead, but with a hearing likely falling after the election,

it's questionable how much value there is in the CFTC continuing to pursue this issue.

In making her ruling, the appellate judge pointed out that there are other steps the regulator could take,

writing, if the commission felt the risks of election contracts were as concrete and pressing as it argues here, it has long had and still has the power to forbid them on the exchanges it regulates.

Specifically, the commission is empowered to find through a formal rule or notice and comment

rulemaking that certain types of event contracts, such as electronic contracts, are, quote,

...