Trump Family’s Crypto Venture | Election Betting Green Light?

Thomas Peterffy, founder and chairman of Interactive Brokers, has already announced that his platform plans to let users place wagers on whether Vice President Kamala Harris will defeat former President Donald Trump in November starting next week.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb issued an opinion, blocking an attempt by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to prohibit Kalshi’s political markets. The CFTC has argued that such markets are “contrary to the public interest,” but Thursday’s ruling hands Kalshi a significant win. “The CFTC’s order exceeded  its statutory authority. Kalshi’s contracts do not involve unlawful activity or gaming. They involve elections, which are neither,” Cobb wrote.

However, the battle is far from over. Just hours after Kalshi launched contracts tied to whether Democrats or Republicans will win control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, an appeals court ordered a temporary halt. The CFTC swiftly filed an emergency motion, and the legal skirmish is now moving to the next stage, with Kalshi awaiting further instructions. 

Meanwhile, Polymarket—the go-to platform for political bets, which has already processed $1 billion in volume this year,—remains tight-lipped about a U.S. return after its 2022 exit following a CFTC settlement.

On Monday, Trump plans to launch World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency project run by his sons, Donald Jr., Eric and Barron. A draft of the World Liberty Financial whitepaper, obtained by CoinDesk, reveals plans to integrate a “credit account system” leveraging Aave’s DeFi platform and the Ethereum blockchain to enable decentralized borrowing and lending. Last month, the former president launched his fourth NFT collection, offering investors a piece of the suit he wore during his debate with President Joe Biden.

Trump’s long-standing practice of intertwining business with his political endeavors is nothing new. And with a reelection campaign on the horizon, his embrace of crypto has become a key talking point.

This collaborative effort is already showing results, freezing more than $12 million in USDT linked to scams, with investigations continuing across three continents. Tron, a blockchain hosting over 247 million user accounts, has seen a surge in criminal activity alongside its growth, according to a report from TRM Labs. The report flagged that 45% of all illicit crypto transactions last year occurred on Tron, up from 41% in 2022. By comparison, Ethereum accounted for 24% of illegal transactions, and Bitcoin for 18%.