Inside the prediction markets: Malta Drafts Rules as Blockchain.com and Jump Trading Expand Their Reach

Prediction markets spent much of the past year fighting legal battles. This week, the focus shifted elsewhere: governments discussed new regulatory frameworks, trading platforms expanded distribution, and institutional firms continued building dedicated businesses around the asset class.

Malta Wants Its Own Rulebook for Prediction Markets

Malta is exploring a dedicated regulatory framework for prediction markets that would sit outside both traditional financial services and gambling law.

Prime Minister Robert Abela has pledged to give the Malta Gaming Authority powers to license the sector, while Economy Minister Silvio Schembri said the government is actively developing the proposal.

If adopted, Malta would become the first EU member state with a bespoke prediction market regime.

While ESMA focused on how certain contracts should be classified under financial services law, Malta is exploring whether prediction markets warrant a separate regulatory category altogether.

Malta followed a similar path in 2018 by introducing a dedicated legal framework for crypto assets before the EU later replaced national regimes with MiCA.

Blockchain.com Adds Prediction Markets to Its Brokerage App

Blockchain.com has integrated Polymarket into its brokerage app, allowing users to access prediction markets alongside spot crypto trading from a single interface.

The feature is powered by Polymarket’s API and lets users place trades without leaving the platform. The launch extends a broader distribution trend across the industry.

Rather than relying solely on their own websites, prediction market operators are increasingly reaching users through established trading platforms with existing customer bases.

Robinhood has already introduced event contracts through Kalshi, while Interactive Brokers offers prediction markets alongside equities, options, and futures.

Jump Trading Builds a Team for Prediction Markets

Jump Trading has doubled its dedicated prediction markets team this year as the firm expands into one of the fastest-growing segments of event-based trading.

According to Bloomberg, the group is recruiting beyond its traditional pool of quantitative traders, seeking candidates with backgrounds ranging from sports betting to accounting.

Unlike traditional quantitative strategies built on deep historical datasets, many event contracts depend on unique or infrequent outcomes where historical data is limited and market context plays a larger role.

For one of the world’s largest quantitative trading firms, prediction markets have become large enough to justify building a dedicated trading capability.

• Jump Trading Expands Prediction Markets Team as “Cultural Alpha” Becomes Part of the Quant Stack
• Malta Tried This with Crypto. Now It’s Trying Again with Prediction Markets
• Inside the Prediction Markets: Kalshi Expands Perpetuals as World Cup Trading Hits New Highs

Number of the Week

$100,000 That’s how much a White House technical assistant allegedly made by trading Kalshi contracts tied to President Donald Trump’s speeches, according to an ABC News report.

The employee, who operated Trump’s teleprompter, allegedly bet on whether specific words or topics would appear in more than a dozen speeches over a three-month period.

Kalshi said it detected the activity through its surveillance systems and referred the trades to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

President Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator is under investigation by federal regulators in connection with bets they allegedly made on the prediction market platform Kalshi related to statements made by Trump.

The operator allegedly made more than $90,000 in profits… pic.twitter.com/Trv7pxCpby

— CNBC (@CNBC) July 16, 2026

Bottom Line

Malta's proposal still needs a formal legislative text, Jump Trading's hiring push is ongoing, and Blockchain.com's integration is days old. None of these are finished stories.

Whether Malta becomes the first EU country with a standalone prediction market framework — and whether other member states follow before ESMA sets its own rules is the one to watch.