<\/p>\n
Coinbase is folding regulated prediction markets into its \u201ceverything exchange\u201d vision, using The Clearing Company to clear on\u2011chain event contracts beside crypto and stocks.<\/p>\n
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Coinbase\u2019s push to become an \u201ceverything exchange\u201d will increasingly run through regulated prediction markets rather than just spot crypto, according to C\u00f4me Prost\u2011Boucle, the exchange\u2019s head of international listings, speaking with crypto.news at ETHGlobal Cannes on March 31.<\/p>\n
For Prost\u2011Boucle, prediction markets are not a novelty bolt\u2011on. They sit at the core of Coinbase\u2019s plan to become what he calls an \u201ceverything exchange.\u201d \u201cThe whole strategy is pretty simple,\u201d he told crypto.news. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to build the everything exchange with Coinbase, meaning that we want to bring under one regulated umbrella all of the asset classes that you can imagine and offer this to both our retail customers and our institutional customers.\u201d <\/p>\n
That umbrella now stretches beyond spot crypto into derivatives, options, tokenized stocks and equities, token sales and, crucially, event\u2011based contracts that let users trade on future outcomes. \u201cWe have this whole breadth of different products that we\u2019re bringing into one umbrella, which is Coinbase,\u201d he said. \u201cOur goal is to push this to as many users as possible across the world, and the reaction has been pretty tremendous so far.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Coinbase\u2019s debut in prediction markets was deliberately conservative. The initial launch in the U.S. leaned on Kalshi, the CFTC\u2011regulated event\u2011contract venue, giving the product an immediate regulatory backbone but also clear constraints on geography and design. <\/p>\n \u201cThe first iteration of the product is available in the US and in a couple of regions, but for instance, it\u2019s not available in Europe because of lack of regulatory clarity,\u201d Prost\u2011Boucle said. That version effectively pipes Kalshi\u2019s markets into the Coinbase interface, letting users trade small\u2011ticket contracts on elections, sports, macro data and other real\u2011world events while staying inside a U.S. event\u2011contract framework.<\/a><\/p>\n The second phase is more aggressive. In December, Coinbase agreed to acquire The Clearing Company, a specialist prediction\u2011market clearing startup with roots in the existing event\u2011contract ecosystem. <\/p>\n Prost\u2011Boucle referred to it in the interview as \u201ca company called The Clearing House,\u201d but the strategic intent is clear. \u201cThe goal is for us to bring these capacities internally so that we can develop this product on chain and we can develop with the DNA that we have to bring all asset classes on chain,\u201d he said. In effect, Coinbase is moving from renting regulated rails to owning the clearing and risk stack, and then pushing more of the lifecycle on\u2011chain while staying within the event\u2011contract perimeter. That stands in contrast to crypto\u2011native venues such as Polymarket, which prioritizes unconstrained on\u2011chain liquidity first and only later began to grapple with regulatory structure.<\/p>\n If prediction markets are to sit alongside crypto, derivatives and tokenized stocks in a single app, collateral efficiency will determine whether users actually route meaningful size through Coinbase. Here, Prost\u2011Boucle says institutional desks are already applying pressure. \u201cThat\u2019s also something that institutional clients have been pushing for,\u201d he noted when asked about cross\u2011margining prediction markets with other Coinbase products. \u201cWe\u2019re currently doing cross\u2011margining for our perpetual futures product, and that\u2019s something that our institutional clients have been craving,\u201d he added, pointing to demand for \u201calways\u2011on exposure possibilities, weekend hedging, all of this that perpetual futures have as internal features.\u201d The logical goal is to have a single collateral pool backing BTC perpetuals, tokenized equity and a portfolio of geopolitical or macro event contracts, rather than trapping capital in isolated silos across venues. \u201cAt the moment we\u2019re working on this product,\u201d he said of cross\u2011margining, \u201cbut I think that\u2019s a good vision for us in the longer term\u2014to have cross\u2011margining across the different asset classes, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The main structural obstacle to that vision is Europe. \u201cPrediction markets in the EU are pretty difficult to apprehend because there\u2019s no unified regulatory framework,\u201d Prost\u2011Boucle said. \u201cIt all depends on what you have as an underlying asset.\u201d He draws a sharp line that mirrors emerging legal commentary: a contract on the future price of Bitcoin is treated as a financial derivative under MiFID, while a contract on an election or football match is pushed into gambling. \u201cIf the contract lies on a financial underlying asset, that would be regulated by MiFID,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut all of the other classes, where currently all of the volumes are\u2014on politics, on sports, this would be regulated under gambling laws in Europe.\u201d<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n That split leaves most of today\u2019s on\u2011chain volume\u2014heavily skewed toward politics and sports\u2014in regulatory limbo from the perspective of a regulated exchange. Any operator that wants to offer political or sports markets across the bloc has to navigate a patchwork of national gambling regimes, each with its own licensing, consumer rules and, in some cases, state monopolies. \u201cIt means you would have to go for every single European gambling law, because there is no unified regulatory framework,\u201d Prost\u2011Boucle said. \u201cThese laws are pretty national, they\u2019re quite country\u2011specific and they\u2019re quite hard to get.\u201d Despite that, he is not writing off the region. \u201cI guess we\u2019re still hopeful that at some point we\u2019re going to have regulatory clarity on prediction markets and a better structure in Europe that enables this type of contract to flourish as well,\u201d he said.<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n Beyond trading revenues, Coinbase clearly sees prediction markets as an information layer that competes with polling, research, and even traditional media. Prost\u2011Boucle points to cases in the U.S. where broadcasters are already embedding live market odds, such as CNBC, CNN, the Dow Jones and other media recently integrating<\/a> Polymarket odds into the \u2018traditional\u2019 newscycle.<\/p>\n That, in turn, brings the problem of truth into focus. Once markets start pricing geopolitics, conflicts, and leadership changes, disputes over what actually happened can become payout disputes. That means oracles used to resolve contracts may be facing increasing scrutiny from not only bettors, but also regulators.<\/p>\n Prost\u2011Boucle argues that most of the damage begins with poor contract design. \u201cIt\u2019s crucial when you enter a contract to look at what the event criteria are,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously you want to diversify sources of truth and have kind of fixed criteria to make sure there is no ambiguity when an event like this happens,\u201d he added. Asked whether AI agents could help by aggregating across outlets and delivering a consolidated verdict, he is open but cautious. \u201cPotentially, AI could be helping with sorting out across different sources\u2011of\u2011truth venues and making sure that we have a consolidated view and a fixed view that is not biased by any specific media or even a group of people,\u201d he said.<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n For now, Coinbase\u2019s approach is less about chasing the wildest version of prediction markets and more about proving they can live inside the same rule\u2011set as everything else on the platform: keep them in a regulated perimeter, pull clearing and risk in\u2011house via The Clearing Company, and wire the whole thing into a broader multi\u2011asset venue where collateral actually earns its keep across products. As Brian Armstrong has put it in other contexts, Coinbase wants to be \u201cthe most trusted bridge\u201d into the crypto economy, and in that frame, everything else\u2014from MiFID hair\u2011splitting in Brussels to the next generation of AI\u2011driven oracles\u2014is just another set of constraints to engineer around, not a reason to sit out a market.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Coinbase is folding regulated prediction markets into its \u201ceverything exchange\u201d vision, using The Clearing Company to clear on\u2011chain event contracts beside crypto and stocks. Summary Coinbase is moving prediction markets…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24834,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24833\/revisions\/24834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Prediction markets dominate conversation at ETHGlobal<\/h2>\n