Polymarket Seeks CFTC Approval to Reopen Main Exchange to US Traders
Polymarket is in active talks with the CFTC to lift the trading ban that has blocked US users from its primary blockchain-based exchange since a 2022 settlement, Bloomberg reported on April 28. The company paid a $1.4 million civil penalty under that agreement and shifted core operations offshore. Now it wants back in, and it is pushing that request while simultaneously rolling out a major technical upgrade to its platform.
One Commissioner, One Vote, Uncertain Timeline
The regulatory path is narrow. The CFTC must hold a formal vote before any ban can be lifted, and four of the agency’s five commissioner seats are currently vacant. Chairman Michael Selig sits alone, which could either accelerate a decision or expose it to political scrutiny over concentration of authority. Selig has previously argued that federal law, not state gaming statutes, governs prediction markets, but he has not issued any public comment on the current Polymarket discussions. As the CFTC has been suing states to defend that jurisdiction, approving Polymarket’s return would reinforce that federal claim in practice, not just in court filings.
According to Bloomberg’s reporting, Polymarket is exploring a consolidation of its international exchange and blockchain infrastructure with the licenses held by Polymarket US, the domestic entity it built after acquiring CFTC-registered derivatives exchange QCEX. That US platform was approved in November 2025 but has not launched publicly. Merging the two operations under a single compliant structure is the cleaner path to full re-entry, but it is not confirmed and remains speculative at this stage, per Financefeeds reporting on the talks.
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Hyperliquid HYPE$68.46▼2.45%CLOB v2 Goes Live With pUSD and $1M in Liquidity Rewards
Separate from the regulatory push, Polymarket deployed its CLOB v2 exchange upgrade on April 28 at approximately 11:00 UTC. The update introduces pUSD as the platform’s new settlement token, replacing the prior USDC-based collateral system, and requires existing users to migrate their balances. The upgrade also ships $1 million in liquidity rewards aimed at attracting professional market makers and deepening order books. That is a practical acknowledgment that Polymarket’s markets have suffered from thin liquidity on lower-volume events, and throwing money at market makers is a reasonable short-term fix even if it does not solve the structural problem.
The timing is not coincidental. A platform pushing for CFTC approval benefits from looking operationally serious, and CLOB v2 signals that Polymarket is investing in infrastructure rather than coasting on its election-cycle brand recognition. The $77 million ceasefire market dispute currently unresolved on the platform tells a different story about the reliability of its oracle system, but that is a separate problem Polymarket would rather not discuss loudly while regulators are watching. Whether pUSD migration goes smoothly for existing users remains to be seen. The combination of regulatory ambition and a mandatory token migration in the same week is a lot of moving parts, and prediction market traders should be watching both closely before assuming this re-entry goes cleanly.
