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Crypto[dot]com's Sports Prediction Market Launch 🔮

Crypto[dot]com have announced the launch of their sports event trading product, marking a significant milestone as a CFTC-regulated service nationwide in the United States.

The product allows users to trade predictions on sports events, starting with Super Bowl LIX outcomes. This launch comes through their Derivatives North America division, which already offers various CFTC-regulated crypto derivatives products.

Like Polymarket, users can wager on yes / no outcome predictions, but in sports. Polymarket recorded nearly $3.2 billion in all-time bets during the election, with $100 million traded on November 4th alone, as it gripped the nation and other parts of the world during the U.S presidential election.

What makes this particularly interesting is that while traditional sports betting operates under state-by-state regulations, this product, being CFTC-regulated, is available nationwide. The initial offering is focused on simple win/lose predictions for the Super Bowl, with potential expansion to more complex offerings in the future. It remains to be seen, however, if those complex offerings will then push the product into more turgid state-by-state regulatory journey that most gambling businesses in the U.S know too well.

The announcement came in the same month (December 2024) that Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev said they are ‘definitely thinking about’ sports betting.

Analysis & Concluding Thoughts 🧠

The launch by Crypto[dot]com represents a product extension that leverages their existing strengths and audience size as well as their influence and synonymity with sports.

This CFTC-regulated approach gives Crypto[dot]com a distinctive advantage in the market, enabling nationwide operation under federal oversight rather than navigating complex state-by-state gambling regulations.

The timing of this launch is even more interesting. It's strategic given the incoming administration's attitude toward crypto, especially following Polymarket's prominent role during the election cycle.

The crypto exchange’s market position means this is a big deal.

They have over 100 million users globally and the most extensive sports sponsorship portfolio in crypto. The user base is substantial even compared to Coinbase’s 75 million users (8 million of whom are monthly transacting) and Binance’s 120 million users worldwide. Their existing users are crypto traders, already comfortable with risk and prediction-based trading, provides a natural audience for this product.

From a broader standpoint, 2025 feels like the year that crypto businesses become more than just crypto businesses. In my 2025 predictions, my most out-there prediction was that Crypto[dot]com try to buy a sports team. It sounds as equally crazy as saying they would enter sports prediction markets 12-24 months ago. Outside of the cryptoasset exchange — USDT Stablecoin creators Tether recently invested a reported $750m in video platform ‘Rumble’. This might well be a sign of things to come, as many crypto businesses find themselves with huge war chests. Perhaps a better prediction considering the sports prediction news would be that Crypto[dot]com acquires a gambling operator…

While Crypto[dot]com are starting more conservatively with simple win/lose predictions for the Super Bowl, their platform could support more sophisticated trading products in the future. It will be interesting to see how this impacts crypto, predictions and gambling markets — and with the likes of Robinhood already hinting at future product launches adjacent to or directly competitive to these industries. It could be a fascinating year in which crypto businesses start competing with behemoths outside of their nascent industry. Indeed, success in an initiative like this could prompt other major crypto exchanges to follow suit with similar products, potentially creating a parallel market to traditional sports betting.

There are risks, of course, to this type of expansion.

First and foremost, growing interest in prediction markets is likely to raise questions about what defines sports betting, especially in a complex regulatory environment like the U.S.

Secondly, we’ve already seen the CFTC fight other trading platform businesses such as 'Kalshi' — who ended up filing against the regulator. Kalshi filed to launch political predictions markets in June 2023, which was rejected by the CFTC in September 2023 — citing concerns over legality, as the contracts ‘resembled gambling and could be considered contrary to the public interest under federal and state laws’. In September 2024, courts allowed Kalshi to proceed with these contracts — with the rationale based on disagreeing with the CFTC’s equation of ‘gaming’ with ‘gambling’. This precedent is interesting, and the fact that Crypto[dot]com have launched these sports prediction markets regulated by the CFTC makes me think that there is clarity coming to what is a peculiar, and slightly grey market. For now, it may sit in the ‘perfect in-between’ for businesses like Crypto[dot]com to take advantage of it, whilst their competitors inside and outside of the industry begin forming propositions and strategies.

2025 is the year crypto businesses stop being ‘just’ crypto businesses, and it feels like this is only the start of that.

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