The CFTC has given two more telling indications of its prediction-market tolerance.
On the same day that the Acting CFTC Chairman Caroline Pham announced the lineup for the first round of the CEO Innovation Council - featuring high-profile prediction market executives - the body also finally approved Gemini as a designated contract market.
This means that, more than five years after first applying, the cryptocurrency exchange, created by the two Winklevoss twins, Tyler and Cameron, will be able to launch a prediction market product, trading its own events-based contracts.
Tyler Winklevoss, Gemini CEO, laid the praise at President Donald Trump's door, saying: "We thank President Trump for ending the Biden Administration's War on Crypto. It's incredibly refreshing to have a President and a financial regulator who are pro-crypto, pro-innovation, and pro-America."
The timings of the two decisions are linked, because not only is 'Gemini Titan' now finally CFTC-approved as a contracts market, but Tyler Winklevoss will take his place alongside Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, Polymarket's Shayne Coplan and others on the CEO Innovation Council.
According to the regulator's statement, this council will engage in a public discussion of developments in the derivatives market.
Pham is quoted saying: "We are building on the success of the CFTC Crypto CEO Forum and the SEC-CFTC Joint Roundtable with our CFTC CEO Innovation Council, specifically focused on market structure developments in derivatives markets such as tokenization, crypto assets, 24/7 trading, perpetual contracts, prediction markets and blockchain market infrastructure."
Kris Marszalek, Crypto.com CEO, is another name on the 12-person strong list of council participants, which means two of the five inaugural members of the Coalition of Prediction Markets (CPM) are represented.
Polymarket was a notable absentee from that newly formed trade association, which consists of Kalshi, Crypto.com, Underdog, Robinhood and Coinbase.
Coplan's prediction market has just relaunched in the US and for market share and trading volume is Kalshi's stiffest competition, though having been champing at the bit to enter the scene for so long, the industry will wait and see how big an impact Gemini will have.
Brian Quintenz, a former nominee for CFTC Chairman, claimed that the Winklevoss twins lobbied President Donald Trump to his detriment
