Federal investigations into the prediction market platform Polymarket have officially wrapped up, according to a report from Bloomberg.
The company was informed earlier this month by both the U.S. Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that their probes had ended, Bloomberg said, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Polymarket, which lets users place bets on everything from elections to sports and weather outcomes, had previously been under scrutiny for possibly allowing U.S. residents to bypass restrictions using VPNs. In 2022, the company settled with the CFTC over unregistered binary options, agreeing to pay a $1.4 million fine and restrict U.S. users going forward.
Polymarket is also blocked in jurisdictions including France, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Belgium, and Poland.
In November 2024, reports surfaced that Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan was under investigation by the DOJ, with the FBI seizing his electronics, according to The New York Post.
Despite the regulatory spotlight, Polymarket continues to grow. In June, the platform reached $1.16 billion in monthly volume, though its active user count dropped nearly 10% to just over 242,000. Last month,
Polymarket is reportedly closing in on a $200 million funding round that would value the company at around $1 billion. The round is expected to be led by Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel. The raise would give Polymarket so-called unicorn status.
Polymarket previously raised more than $100 million, including a quiet $50 million investment earlier this year. The latest round follows the platform’s announcement of a partnership with Elon Musk’s X, which will link Polymarket’s trading data with analysis from the platform’s in-house chatbot, Grok.
The platform allows users to wager crypto on real-world outcomes — from central bank decisions and geopolitical flashpoints to the timing of ceasefires and political races. Current markets include bets on whether Israel will strike Iran again, the odds of a U.S. recession in 2025, the passage of stablecoin legislation, and outcomes of local elections.
According to Polymarket’s analytics dashboard, the platform has around 1.2 million traders, 20 million open positions, and over 21,000 active markets.
The company competes with other real-money forecasting platforms such as Kalshi, which is backed by Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital. In March, Kalshi also inked a partnership with Robinhood, bringing its prediction contracts to millions of retail users.
