Interactive Brokers enters the prediction market! One-stop connection to Kalshi and CME—brokers’ accounts can place orders

Major brokerage firm Interactive Brokers integrates multiple services and launches a new prediction market trading platform. Wall Street officially enters event contracts, but will still face strict regulatory challenges such as insider trading in the future.

Interactive Brokers officially enters the prediction market, integrating Kalshi and CME services

Global major electronic broker Interactive Brokers announces the launch of a new prediction market trading platform, consolidating event-based trading products like Kalshi, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), and ForecastEx into a single interface, allowing users to participate in prediction market trading directly through their existing brokerage accounts.

According to official statements, the platform will in the future offer a variety of event contracts covering interest rate decisions, inflation data, election results, energy markets, and major global events. Users will also be able to trade stocks, futures, options, cryptocurrencies, and prediction market commodities within the same system.

Kalshi’s valuation soars, Wall Street begins reevaluating prediction markets

Prediction platform Kalshi has rapidly risen over the past year, completing a $1 billion funding round earlier this year, reaching a valuation of $22 billion, making it one of Wall Street’s most closely watched emerging financial platforms recently.

Kalshi’s biggest feature is that it is regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), allowing it to legally offer event contract trading services to U.S. users. Compared to native crypto prediction markets like Polymarket, Kalshi is easier to attract traditional financial institutions and large capital inflows.

With Interactive Brokers directly integrating Kalshi and CME, it also indicates that Wall Street is beginning to view event-based trading as a new category of financial products. Some traders even see prediction markets as important tools for observing market sentiment, policy directions, and overall economic changes.

Prediction markets are gradually becoming an entry point for financial information and trading decisions

In the past two years, increasing geopolitical conflicts, repeated changes in Federal Reserve policies, and ongoing market volatility have rapidly increased investors’ demand for real-time risk pricing.

Compared to traditional analysis reports, which often have time lags, prediction market prices change instantly with news and market sentiment. As a result, more funds and trading institutions are starting to see them as decision-making aids. Investors can now directly bet on whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, whether U.S. CPI will exceed expectations, or even on international conflicts and election outcomes through event contracts.

The crypto industry has long regarded prediction markets as one of the important application scenarios of blockchain. Over the past year, Polymarket has gained popularity due to contracts related to the U.S. presidential election, Middle East conflicts, and Federal Reserve policies, prompting more traditional financial institutions to reassess the commercial value of event markets.

Regulatory and insider trading controversies continue to escalate

However, the rapid expansion of prediction markets has also brought regulatory issues back into focus. Recently, cases have emerged where military personnel in the U.S. used confidential information to profit from Polymarket trades, drawing high attention from Congress and regulators.

• Related news: U.S. active service member arrested! Involved in insider trading related to Venezuela operations, profiting $400k on prediction markets

Some regulators worry that the line between prediction markets and gambling markets is becoming blurred; supporters argue that event markets can improve information efficiency and risk pricing, even better reflecting market expectations than traditional polls and research reports.

As major brokerages like Interactive Brokers officially enter the space, prediction markets are likely to evolve from fringe products into mainstream financial tools on Wall Street.

This content is summarized by Crypto Agent from various sources, reviewed and edited by “Crypto City.” It is still in the training phase and may contain logical biases or informational errors. The content is for reference only and should not be considered investment advice.