Polymarket buys QCEX in $112 million deal to enter U.S. prediction market legally

Prediction market platform Polymarket said on Monday it has acquired U.S.-registered derivatives exchange QCX and its affiliated clearinghouse QC Clearing for $112 million, marking a major step toward entering the U.S. market legally.

The Florida-based pair of entities, collectively known as QCEX, recently received approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to operate as a contract market. The acquisition gives Polymarket a regulated entity in the United States and could allow it to begin offering event-based betting contracts to American users.

“Now, with the acquisition of QCEX, we are laying the foundation to bring Polymarket home — re-entering the U.S. as a fully regulated and compliant platform that will allow Americans to trade their opinions,” Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan said. 

Polymarket has been barred from serving U.S. users since 2022 and had been under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the CFTC over its activities during the last presidential election. The probe, which included an FBI raid on Coplan’s home in November, was recently closed, easing regulatory barriers to its reentry.

Founded in 2020, Polymarket gained significant traction around the last U.S. election and has since facilitated about $6 billion in prediction trading globally this year alone, according to company figures.

Despite the closure of the federal investigation, questions remain around Polymarket’s prior U.S. activity. A report last week said the company spent over $1 million on Facebook and Instagram ads targeting U.S. users, a potential violation of its ban.

Polymarket’s reentry would put it in direct competition with Kalshi, the only prediction market currently operating with CFTC approval. Though other exchanges are registered, Kalshi has so far maintained a dominant foothold. Polymarket’s trading volume reportedly exceeds Kalshi’s by more than fourfold.

“Shayne has built a cultural phenomenon in Polymarket,” said Sergei Dobrovolskii, founder of QCEX. “I am excited to bring our companies together and leverage our licences, technology, and expertise in the retail trading sector to help Polymarket reach its full potential.”

Polymarket may still need to revise parts of its offering to comply with CFTC rules. For example, the agency does not permit contracts based on box office performance - a type of market Polymarket currently supports.

In June, the company also announced a partnership with Elon Musk’s X, saying the Grok chatbot would provide “contextualised, data-driven insights” to users on the platform.

“Polymarket is the largest prediction market globally and has become synonymous with understanding the probability of current events,” Coplan said.