Polymarket Returning to U.S. with $112M Acquisition After Prosecutors Drop Probe

Polymarket, the crypto-powered betting platform known for its political prediction markets, is preparing a return to the U.S. after a federal investigation into its operations was dropped last week, the company said in a press release on Monday.

The New York-based company is acquiring QCX, a regulated derivatives exchange, for $112 million. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) granted QCX approval to operate on July 9, two years after first applying for a license.

The deal gives Polymarket a legal path back into the U.S., where it had agreed in 2022 to stop serving American users. At the time, Polymarket settled with the CFTC for operating an unregistered market and agreed to block U.S.-based traders. But despite that agreement, authorities later began investigating whether the company had failed to enforce that restriction.

The Justice Department and the CFTC had been probing Polymarket for months. As part of that investigation, the FBI reportedly searched the home of founder Shayne Coplan in New York City. A Polymarket spokesperson told CoinDesk at the time the raid was “obvious political retribution,” though the company did not elaborate further.

With the investigation now dropped, Polymarket is shifting to a regulatory-compliant model through the QCX acquisition. The move will likely let it offer its popular prediction markets to U.S. users for the first time in years — this time under the oversight of financial regulators.

Polymarket’s rise to fame came during the 2024 U.S. presidential election, where its betting markets attracted attention for pricing political outcomes in real time. The platform lets users trade on the likelihood of future events using crypto, with topics ranging from elections to sports to geopolitics.

By merging with a licensed derivatives platform, Polymarket appears to be betting that legal clarity, not legal battles, will drive its next phase of growth. The company has not said when it plans to relaunch in the U.S.

Just last month, Polymarket was reportedly edging closer to a $200 million raise at a $1 billion valuation.