Bitnomial cleared a major regulatory hurdle on Jan. 8, receiving a narrowly scoped no-action letter from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission that paves the way for it to offer prediction markets in the United States. The CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight and Division of Clearing and Risk said they will not pursue enforcement against Bitnomial Exchange or Bitnomial Clearinghouse for limited deviations from swap reporting and record-keeping rules — but only for a specific set of binary and bounded contracts. Often called event or prediction contracts, these instruments settle on clear, yes/no or bounded outcomes (for example, whether a defined event occurs within a set range). The relief is tightly conditional. It applies only to contracts traded on Bitnomial’s exchange and cleared through its registered clearinghouse, and it exempts those contracts from certain swap data reporting obligations that would otherwise make high-frequency event contracts operationally difficult to run. The letter’s approach mirrors prior no-action positions the CFTC has granted to regulated markets offering similar products. Despite the carve-out, oversight remains: all contracts must be fully collateralized, Bitnomial must publish trading data, and it must provide records to regulators on request. The exemption is therefore intended to preserve prudential safeguards while removing reporting frictions that can hinder the micro-timing and scale of event-based trading. Bitnomial already operates as a designated contract market and as a registered derivatives clearing organization, and this approval broadens its product lineup beyond traditional futures and options into event-based trading — a space that has attracted growing interest from traders and institutions. Until now, much of the activity around prediction markets has lived on offshore or loosely regulated platforms. The CFTC’s limited no-action letter creates a practical on‑shore option for institutions and retail participants to access event-based contracts under federal supervision instead of relying on unregulated venues. The decision doesn’t remove all regulatory obligations or create a blanket exemption, but it does clear a practical path for Bitnomial to launch prediction markets within the U.S. regulatory framework — a notable step for a fast-growing corner of crypto trading. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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