In brief – Senator Elizabeth Warren said the CFTC has been “steamrolled” by prediction market and crypto firms it’s meant to oversee. – In a letter to CFTC Chair Michael Selig, Warren tied the agency’s gutted workforce and slashed enforcement to decisions benefiting companies…
nked to Trump and his family. – The senator demanded records of CFTC communications with industry and a list of staff placed on leave by June 18. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wants to know why the agency policing prediction markets seems to keep siding with companies linked to President Donald Trump and his family
In a letter sent Monday to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig, Warren questioned whether the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission can effectively regulate prediction markets and cryptocurrencies “amidst unprecedented presidential corruption.” She pointed to a recent New York Times report describing how the watchdog had been “steamrolled” by the industries it oversees. “As prediction markets balloon in size, and Congress advances legislation that threatens to loosen the guardrails on cryptocurrency, the CFTC’s reported capture by industry poses severe risks to American families and our economy,” Warren wrote. Top prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket hold roughly $60 billion in market value as of early 2026, and the industry could reach $1 trillion in trading volume by 2030, per a Bernstein estimate cited by CNBC.
Yet Warren says the agency tasked with watching them has been hollowed out with its workforce cut by about 25%, with enforcement actions falling from 58 in fiscal year 2024 to just 11 in the year since Trump took office. Warren tied those cuts directly to the administration’s financial entanglements. According to the reporting she cited, the CFTC approved a Polymarket request after an investment by Donald Trump Jr.’s investment firm, fast-tracked a Gemini offshoot whose founders backed Trump-affiliated American Bitcoin, and sidelined…