Even Temporarily Blocking Election Contracts Risks 'Irreparable' Harm, Kalshi Argues

“Prediction market company Kalshi pushed back against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s move to block its new election contracts, saying they would harm the company.”, — write: www.coindesk.com

Prediction market company Kalshi should be allowed to list and trade its new political contracts while the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission appeals its court loss, the company said in a filing Friday.

Kalshi, which won a significant victory in court last week when a federal judge ruled its political prediction markets should be allowed to trade in the U.S., said the CFTC wouldn’t suffer any major harm if its new contracts were allowed to trade during the appeal process, but the company would “suffer substantial – indeed, irreparable – harm” if it’s blocked from letting people bet on the outcome of the 2024 elections.

“A stay will deny Kalshi significant revenue derived from trading these contracts. Indeed, a stay would strip the Congressional Control Contracts of any value derived from the current election cycle – which will be over long before this appeal concludes,” Kalshi said. “In effect, a stay would allow the CFTC to win in practice even though it lost in court.”

Kalshi filed to list the markets last year, but was blocked by the CFTC, which cited concerns about political prediction markets. The company sued and won last week. The CFTC filed for an emergency stay blocking Kalshi from immediately listing its contracts, but lost that fight too. The contracts went live Thursday afternoon, before being temporarily suspended by the D.C. Appeals Court while it considers the emergency stay.

Kalshi’s filing on Friday is an effort to convince the appeals court judges that it should be allowed to trade its contracts while the CFTC’s appeal of the overall case works its way through the court system.

The stay would block Kalshi from making back the “millions of dollars” it spent building and marketing its new products, the filing said, while also blocking it from “carv[ing] out a competitive niche” in a world where offshore platforms like Polymarket enjoy their own prediction markets.

Disclosure

Please note that our

cookies,

and

do not sell my personal information

has been updated

CoinDesk is an

award-winning

media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a

strict set of editorial policies.

In November 2023

, CoinDesk was acquired

by the Bullish group, owner of

Bullish,

a regulated, digital assets exchange. The Bullish group is majority-owned by

Block.one; both companies have

interests

in a variety of blockchain and digital asset businesses and significant holdings of digital assets, including bitcoin.

CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive options in the Bullish group as part of their compensation.

Nikhilesh De is CoinDesk’s managing editor for global policy and regulation. He owns marginal amounts of bitcoin and ether.

Follow @nikhileshde on Twitter

Name	Price	24H (%)
Bitcoin(BTC)	$63,095.00	4.51%
Ethereum(ETH)	$2,471.02	5.80%
Tether(USDT)	$1.00	0.11%
BNB(BNB)	$566.87	3.32%
Solana(SOL)	$143.52	9.45%
USDC(USDC)	$1.00	0.07%
XRP(XRP)	$0.59	1.76%
Lido Staked Ether(STETH)	$2,470.68	5.83%
Dogecoin(DOGE)	$0.105989	3.80%
Toncoin(TON)	$5.70	1.17%

Login

Register

Related posts

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply