Morning Minute | Prediction Market Cleared to Offer Election Bets in U.S.

TylerD's Market Summary

🇺🇸 Kalshi Beats The CFTC, Cleared to Offer Election Markets in U.S.

Prediction markets have been having a break out year, largely on the back of Polymarket's success.

Polymarket alone has seen $750M in volume in just the past 2 months and is well on its way to a $1B quarter.

And the future looks brighter than ever, after a recent court ruling.

What Happened?

On Friday, Kalshi won a federal lawsuit against the CFTC over its plan to offer betting markets on which party will control each house of Congress after the election.

The CFTC previously blocked Kalshi (a U.S.-based and regulated prediction market) from listing election market bets on the ground that they're considered unlawful gaming.

Kalshi then sued, and won, in what is now a massive win for the broader prediction market sector.

A Kalshi spokesperson posted to their website on Friday:

"We did it! U.S. election markets are coming to Kalshi."

But they aren't out of the woods just yet.

The CFTC approved a rule proposal to ban election markets in the U.S. back in May, which has already been approved by the commission and is currently following a review process before becoming official.

Though it is hard to see how this rule would jive with the recent court ruling, it likely would muddy up prediction markets' status in the U.S. at least for a few more months.

Why It Matters

Election markets make up something like 90%+ of prediction market volume in election years.

Polymarket has been able to skirt the rules this cycle by blocking U.S.-based users, but widespread VPN access allows savvy users to bet anyway.

Removing the ban (and need for VPN) would remove a major hurdle for adoption still.

Volumes would likely spike into the final 2 months pre-election.

But if this isn't fully resolved soon, it may not matter for another 4 years anyway...

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH led NFT trading volume with $3.25M on the day; Bitcoin was next with $1.16M, and then Solana with $1.14M
• ETH NFT leaders mostly chopped over the weekend closing a mixed week; Pudgy +1% at 10.4 ETH, BAYC +3% at 12.15 ETH, Azuki -1% at 4.63, Milady -1% at 3.3; Punks at 29.75 ETH
• Pudgy Puppets (+100%) & alignDRAW (+59%) were notable top movers
• BTC NFT leaders were mixed; NodeMonkes -5% at 0.12 BTC, Puppets +5% at 0.085 BTC, Quantum Cats -1% at 0.237 and Bitcoin Shrooms +25% to 1.49
• The Runes leaders were red; DOG -w% at $254M mc, RSIC -1% at $53M mc, PUPS -1% to $23M
• The Decentralized Rune (from the CyberKongz team) announced it would fulfill its name and go decentralized with no further building from the team (rune down 30% on week to $4.64M mc)
• Solana NFTs were mixed; Mad Lads +1% at 61 SOL, SMB Gen 2 even at 24, DeGods -1% at 24.7, Claynosaurz -1% to 15.4
• A Zombie Hoodie Punk sold for 475 ETH ($1.06M) closing a big week for Punk grails
• Pudgy Penguins gave soulbound tokens to all of their 1,000 day holders
• Doodles music video for "Can't Hold Me Down" went live on Friday and then the live premiere for Dullsville and the Doodleverse happened Saturday night
• A Doodles Cat sold for 26.25 WETH last night ($60,400), with the floor up 5% on the week to 1.79 ETH

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are green this morning after a small weekend rally; BTC +1% at $55,235; ETH +1% at $2,315, SOL -1% at $130
• Memecoin majors are also green with DOGE +3%, PEPE +2%, WIF +1%, BONK even, MOG +6%
• Friday's US Jobs report led to a historically volatile day for rate cut futures, 50 bps hits a high at 60% before falling to 20% (now at 25% on Polymarket), briefly leading to a sell off in crypto majors 
• Crypto stocks closed their worst week of the year on Friday with majors like Coinbase down 20% and Schwab's crypto-themed EFT down 11%
• Roaring Kitty shared a Toy Story / CHEWY meme, seemingly indicating that he's finished with that meme; $GME pumped 77% afterwards
• A Court ruled against the CFTC in blocking prediction markets in US in a huge boost for Polymarklet and other protocols
• VanEck decided to shut down its ETH Futures ETF, citing factors like lack of performance, liquidity, assets under management, and investor interest in the decision

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $DOGE (+136%, $11M market cap, ETH)
• $BOBO (+41%, $44M market cap, ETH)
• $BENDOG (+35%, $15M market cap, SOL)
• $PORK (+28%, $63M market cap, ETH)
• $VISTA (+17%, $25M market cap, ETH)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Pudgy Puppets (110%, 0.13 ETH Floor)
• alignDRAW (59%, 1.49 ETH)
• RCS (30%, 0.23 ETH)
• CryptoCitizens (27%, 0.21 ETH)
• Nakamigos (16%, 0.14 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events

Today is a busier day of mints to start the week.

Mintify is launching its Ordinals Keys, Philheal is the meme card artist and then Tender x Verse launch a handful of mints from Dr Formalyst and tuukzs.

Also, Snowfro will be auctioning off 3 Chromie Squigglds with help from AOTM.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• Mintify - Ordinals Keys (9:00 a.m. ET)
• Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
• AOTM x Snowfro - Squiggles auctions (12:00 p.m. ET)
• Base Boys (12:00 p.m. ET)
• Dr Formalyst x Tender x Verse - In Spirits (2:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.