CFTC to Surveil Crypto, Prediction Markets Using Nasdaq Platform

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is stepping up efforts to surveil financial markets, tapping technology from Nasdaq to gain a more granular view of crypto transactions, according to a press release published by the regulator on Wednesday.

Nasdaq’s Market Surveillance platform, which covers a dozen asset classes, including digital assets and prediction markets, represents a significant upgrade, the CFTC said, as it moves to replace its “‘90s-era legacy system” for detecting illicit behavior among market participants.

Prediction markets have been buzzy, with the president's son joining Polymarket's advisory board on Tuesday.

Still, a Nasdaq spokesperson told Decrypt that prediction markets mirror derivatives that the CFTC has regulated since the agency was established in 1974.

“Prediction markets operate in the same way as most derivative markets, with similar potential for market abuse and manipulation,” the spokesperson said. “The technology can therefore be adapted to serve almost all forms of event-based markets.”

At the same time, the CFTC acknowledged that markets have changed rapidly in recent years, with digital infrastructure providing round-the-clock trading.

“The growth in both traditional and new markets and products, combined with innovations in market structure, such as the launch of continuous trading hours, require increasingly sophisticated tools to prevent and detect potential market abuse,” the CFTC said.

The shift also comes as U.S. lawmakers mull the CLARITY Act, a comprehensive piece of crypto legislation that would establish jurisdiction between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC. 

The bill was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives last month, and under its current text, most cryptocurrencies would fall under the classification of a commodity, as opposed to a security, removing them from the SEC’s regulatory remit.

The CFTC noted that Nasdaq’s Market Surveillance platform is already used by 50 exchanges, as well as nearly two dozen international regulators. A regulatory guide for crypto that was recently released by Nasdaq notes that the CFTC has been “exploring blockchain technology applications to strengthen regulatory surveillance capabilities.”

The Commission said it's in the midst of a “crypto sprint,” moving quickly to implement recommendations from a sweeping White House crypto report released recently, which may end up putting new obligations on the intermediaries that it covers.

The 166-page report recommended that “venues for non-security digital assets should be required to report market data, subject to reporting obligations established by the CFTC,” such as crypto exchanges and prediction markets.

The leading prediction market, Polymarket, recently acquired a CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange for $112 million, as it eyes a return to the U.S.

The Nasdaq spokesperson told Decrypt that the technology underpinning its platform “can be adapted for use cases across all crypto markets.” The “demand for institutional grade surveillance capabilities” has increased as the crypto market matures,” they added.

CORRECTION (August 27, 2025, 3:53 p.m.): Removes attribution from a characterization of prediction markets in paragraph three.