The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will release guidance on prediction markets "in the very near future," Chair Michael Selig said in remarks reported by The Block on March 3, 2026. Whether that output will constitute formal rulemaking or informal guidance remains unconfirmed; the two carry different legal weight, a distinction that bears directly on the durability of any new framework under current judicial standards. The statement nonetheless signals that the agency is moving toward some form of oversight structure for platforms that let users trade contracts tied to real-world outcomes, ranging from elections to sports results to economic data.

"We are going out with guidance in the very near future, so please stay tuned," Selig said. The remarks follow a series of sweeping actions he took on January 29, 2026, his first day of public remarks as Chair, including directing staff to withdraw a 2024 proposed rule that would have banned political and sports event contracts.

A 2025 advisory warning against sports contracts was also scrapped. In place of those restrictions, Selig promised to build a new framework grounded in what he called a "rational and coherent interpretation of the Commodity Exchange Act" consistent with congressional intent. His stated agenda encompasses four pillars: withdrawing the prior administration's restrictive actions, drafting new event-contract standards, actively litigating federal preemption of state regulation, and developing joint CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission guidance on the definitions of commodity and security options. That fourth pillar carries particular relevance for crypto-adjacent markets, where the boundary between commodities and securities remains contested.

The reversal hands a significant win to regulated platforms. Kalshi, which holds a CFTC designation as a Designated Contract Market, and Polymarket, which runs on the Polygon blockchain, can now self-certify new contract types with the agency without facing opposition. Polymarket reached a settlement with the CFTC in 2022 and subsequently blocked access for U.S. users; the platform's current positioning as a primary beneficiary of the agency's new direction reflects how substantially the regulatory climate has shifted. Combined, the two platforms recorded roughly $40 billion in trading volume across 2025, though that figure carries a caveat: a December 2025 report from crypto investment firm Paradigm found that Polymarket's on-chain volume numbers have been systematically double-counted across major analytics platforms including DefiLlama, Allium, and Blockworks, and dashboards are still being revised. The Block Data reported Polymarket's notional volume for 2025 at approximately $21.5 billion, though the actual figure may be lower once double-counting adjustments are fully accounted for. Polymarket's total value locked on-chain reached approximately $330 million in late 2025, with the platform logging more than 95 million on-chain transactions for the year.

The CFTC is also moving aggressively on jurisdictional questions. On February 17, the agency filed an amicus curiae brief in the Ninth Circuit in the matter of Nadex/Crypto.com v. Nevada, arguing that event contracts are "swaps" under the Commodity Exchange Act and fall under exclusive federal jurisdiction. State gaming regulators in Nevada, Massachusetts, and Tennessee have all taken enforcement actions against Kalshi, and courts have issued conflicting rulings on whether those actions can proceed. Selig made the agency's position on that conflict explicit in a video posted to X on February 17. "To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear: we will see you in court," he said.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the pace of change. Senator Adam Schiff wrote to Selig on February 13 urging caution on both rulemaking and litigation strategy, citing consumer protection concerns about the speed of the agency's pivot.

The legal context matters beyond the immediate fight between federal and state regulators. Legal commentary from Sidley Austin has noted that the shift away from Chevron deference (under which courts historically deferred to an agency's reading of ambiguous statutes) toward the stricter Loper Bright standard means the CFTC can no longer rely on informal guidance to hold up in court. Durable rules require formal rulemaking with clear statutory grounding, which is precisely what Selig says he intends to produce.

For users outside the United States, the direction of U.S. policy carries real weight. Polymarket is accessible in more than 160 countries without identity verification requirements in many jurisdictions. Whether Indian users can access the platform is less certain: the country's Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, signed into law on August 22, 2025, imposes a broad prohibition on online money games with no explicit carve-out for prediction or opinion trading platforms. Domestic platforms Probo and Better Opinions operate in what Indian media have labeled a "Digital Satta" grey zone (satta refers to informal wagering), with no clear regulatory path forward. The Esya Centre, a technology policy research group, has called for a framework distinguishing skill-based trading from chance-based wagering as a potential path toward legitimization. India's Supreme Court has repeatedly deferred rulings on the legality of real-money gaming, most recently in late January 2026.

Across Africa, the picture is more mixed. Nigeria sits among the most crypto-active countries by adoption rates, and users on the continent have been early participants on Polymarket. South Africa offers the most concrete example of formalization pressure already building: regulated brokers there are actively positioning for prediction market products as the regulatory environment shifts. If U.S. rulemaking establishes a global norm, as Basel banking standards and FATF travel rules have done in other sectors, regulators from Lagos to Johannesburg could face pressure to demand compliance with similar "designated exchange" requirements, raising the barrier for informal or community-level prediction tools.

The CFTC has not published a rulemaking timeline. Formal notice-and-comment procedures typically take several months from proposal to final rule, suggesting that a completed framework is unlikely to arrive before late 2026.