betting

According to Decrypt, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina of the Ingham County Circuit Court in Michigan has issued a preliminary injunction against the prediction market platform Kalshi, requiring it to stop offering sports betting-related contracts to Michigan residents. The court found that Kalshi's related business is essentially "sports betting disguised as investment opportunities."Under the order, Kalshi must block in-state users through a third-party geolocation service licensed by the Michigan betting regulatory agency, or face a daily fine of $500,000. The injunction also prohibits it from allowing account registration, deposits, advertising, and similar sports betting product features for Michigan residents until a final judgment is made in the case.

Tom Lee stated during his appearance on CNBC: "I believe that there are actually very few people who truly hold cryptocurrencies. Because of this, I think Bitcoin can easily break through six figures (like over $100,000), but it may also be affected by interest rate hikes. As for how cryptocurrencies will perform, I think this will be a good test, but we have already seen long-term yields (interest rates) rising. So, if we see the Federal Reserve raising interest rates while long-term yields actually decline, that would essentially mean monetary easing. Therefore, the key may be how long-term yields respond to the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes."He also added: "I think this is just the first wave of the rise because this round of cryptocurrency market has caught many people off guard. Well, I believe institutional investors are buying stocks related to cryptocurrencies, and this is very obvious—trading volume has surged significantly, which signals that they are betting on a big market in the fourth quarter. I think $150,000 is still possible, well, it's actually not that far from now."

According to CoinDesk, as Bitcoin surged from about $62,000 to over $77,000 last week, liquidating approximately $3 billion in leveraged short positions, major crypto market makers such as Abraxas Capital, Fasanara Capital, and Wintermute quietly established short positions in perpetual contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars on Hyperliquid.Lookonchain data shows that the three institutions collectively hold short positions of 138,569 ETH (approximately $338 million) and 3,425 BTC (approximately $265 million); meanwhile, Abraxas Capital withdrew 73,872 ETH (approximately $173 million) from Binance in the past four days.This strategy is known as cash arbitrage or basis trading: traders hold spot positions while shorting an equivalent amount of assets through perpetual contracts to hedge against price volatility risks, primarily earning the funding rates paid by longs to shorts. In previous months, funding rates were long suppressed or even turned negative, but this month's rebound has quickly turned funding rates positive, reopening the arbitrage window. Aegis data shows that the 30-day average funding rate for Bitcoin perpetual contracts on August 24 reached an annualized 6.7%, with a 7-day average of 8.7%; 21shares capital markets noted that basis trading for mainstream assets like Solana is also becoming lucrative.This trading has extended to regulated markets: Glassnode data shows that CME Bitcoin futures open interest has risen from about 87,000 BTC to 122,000 BTC.

According to The Block, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the prediction market platform Kalshi failed to prove that federal regulations take precedence over Nevada's regulatory authority over sports betting, and Kalshi is not entitled to an injunction.Previously, the Nevada Gaming Control Board had issued a cease and desist order to Kalshi, requiring it to stop conducting contract trading related to elections and sporting events in the state, threatening to initiate criminal or civil proceedings. Subsequently, Kalshi sued the Gaming Control Board and the state, seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent Nevada from regulating its trading of sports and election event contracts. The district court initially granted the injunction but later revoked it following a ruling against Crypto.com. However, the appellate court stated on Friday: "We find that Kalshi has failed to demonstrate that the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) likely takes precedence over state gaming regulations when applied to its sports event contracts, and we also find that the district court's decision to revoke the injunction did not abuse its discretion." The panel of judges stated: "The en banc court finds that the Commodity Exchange Act likely does not take precedence over Nevada's gaming regulations when applied to Kalshi's sports event contracts."

RockawayX manages approximately $2 billion in assets and is seeking to raise $150 million for a new liquidity opportunity fund. RockawayX previously acquired the crypto hedge fund Relayer Capital. Relayer Capital founder and former CoinFund partner Austin Barack will continue to serve at RockawayX and will be responsible for managing the fund.The fund will focus on investing in undervalued tokens and crypto-related stocks. Recently, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana have all seen increases of over 20% in the past week. Meanwhile, crypto venture capital firms such as Paradigm and Framework Ventures are incorporating fields like AI and robotics into their investment strategies.

On August 24, a portfolio manager at Fidelity International stated that the gold holdings of the fund he manages have doubled in the past three weeks, attributing this move to increased uncertainty surrounding Federal Reserve policy. After raising the gold allocation in the fund to his self-imposed limit of 5%, George Efstathopoulos mentioned that he would consider increasing this limit if the dollar's status as a safe-haven asset continues to decline. Following the Federal Reserve's July meeting, investors have been selling long-term government bonds, and it is against this backdrop that George began to increase his gold holdings."My understanding is that this is due to the Federal Reserve's lack of credibility and the intensification of policy uncertainty," George stated. He also noted that the U.S. Treasury unexpectedly increased its repurchase of long-term bonds, which seems more like "manipulating yields rather than addressing the fundamental reasons for why yields are rising." "Today, the focus on gold is no longer on the rise in yields themselves, but rather on why yields are rising."

According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Treasury announced that from September 9 to November 4, the limit for single long-term U.S. Treasury bond repurchases will be raised from $2 billion to at least $4 billion, using short-term debt financing instead of "printing money," which the market views as a liquidity management operation similar to "Operation Twist 2."Although officials emphasize that this measure is not quantitative easing (QE) or yield curve control (YCC), it is interpreted as a signal of policy concerns regarding rising financing costs against the backdrop of long-term yields reaching nearly a twenty-year high and high fiscal deficits. This has strengthened expectations for a more aggressive YCC in the future, driving Bitcoin to surge short-term, breaking through $78,000, with a weekly increase of 23%. Gold has also strengthened, while the dollar weakened, intensifying market volatility due to short covering.

According to a report by Reuters, American companies have invested a record $517 million in the congressional elections for the House and Senate in 2026 over the 15 months ending in the first quarter of 2026, surpassing the previous high of $461 million during the two-year 2024 election cycle. The cryptocurrency, technology, and online betting industries contributed at least $294 million, becoming a major force in shaping the midterm elections.The Fairshake super PAC, primarily funded by Coinbase, Ripple, and a16z, had $193 million in funding at the beginning of the year and currently has about $130 million remaining; a16z has donated over $81 million to cryptocurrency and AI-related PACs. Elon Musk has invested over $90 million, and Meta has donated $65 million to four super PACs. The AI-related organization Leading the Future has raised $140 million, and Anthropic has donated at least $40 million through dark money non-profit organizations. Online betting companies like DraftKings and FanDuel have donated over $72 million.AdImpact expects total political ad spending for this round of midterm elections to reach a record $11.6 billion. Related industries are making unlimited expenditures through super PACs, affiliated PACs, and dark money non-profit organizations for advertising, voter mobilization, and more, with critics arguing that this amplifies the influence of niche issues such as cryptocurrency regulation, data center energy, and betting regulation.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) held a meeting of the Communications Review Subcommittee and determined that the overseas prediction market platform Polymarket provided illegal betting, deciding to implement access blocking measures against it. The committee judged that Polymarket's business model is based on the outcomes of events that users cannot control, such as politics, sports, elections, and weather, adopting a "winner takes all" profit and loss structure that fosters speculative psychology; the platform operator is responsible for market establishment, trading rule setting, and overall operational management, providing a virtual asset acceptance and settlement system, which effectively creates an environment for raising and delivering user funds, and profits by charging transaction fees through share trading, violating South Korea's Criminal Law and the National Sports Promotion Act.Polymarket argued that the platform operates based on non-custodial peer-to-peer trading and smart contracts, and does not directly raise funds, manage funds, or issue sports promotion voting rights. However, the committee responded that one cannot evade the applicability of domestic laws in South Korea based on technical characteristics such as whether Korean language services are provided, decentralized technology, or centralized trading interfaces. Given that the platform has actually provided illegal betting to South Korean users, access blocking is unavoidable to protect domestic users.

According to Bloomberg, ultra-high-net-worth family offices from the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East are significantly increasing their investments in SpaceX, with total exposure reaching approximately $3.8 billion, indicating that private wealth institutions are vying for investment opportunities in this rocket, satellite, and artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk.Among them, the family office of Hyatt Hotels heir Nick Pritzker holds an investment position in SpaceX valued at approximately $1.8 billion.

A giant whale placed a limit short sale order of approximately $203 million on the tokenized aerospace company SpaceX stock SPCX, with a price range of $141.93 to $142.9, betting on a price decline of the token.At the beginning of August, the two-day trading volume of SPCX on the tokenized trading platform Gate reached about $700 million, with a single-day transaction of $332 million on August 4, as the market traded around the 911.5 million shares that were unlocked on August 6. After the unlocking, SPCX rose by 6.1%, closing at $114.92.Documents from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) show that Elon Musk holds a 48.4% beneficial interest in SpaceX, corresponding to over 6.4 billion shares, valued at over $900 billion at current prices; the related Class B shares give him over 82% of the total voting rights in SpaceX.

According to Bloomberg, as a large number of high-growth startups emerge in fields such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology, private equity and Pre-IPO investment tools aimed at ordinary investors are rapidly increasing. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman's investment firm Pershing Square is preparing to launch a new fund to provide investors with the opportunity to participate in high-growth companies that are not yet publicly listed.Currently, Pershing Square has initiated the process to establish "Pershing Square Ventures." This fund will adopt a "permanent capital" model, allowing for long-term holding of investment targets and continuing to hold shares after the invested companies go public.Ackman and Pershing Square Chief Investment Officer Ryan Israel stated in a letter to shareholders that the new fund aims to capture investment opportunities in Pre-IPO companies and expand the company's investment scope beyond the public markets. At present, Pershing Square has not disclosed the target size of the fund, investment strategy details, or specific fundraising timeline.

On July 29, the U.S. Department of Commerce signed letters of intent with seven companies, totaling up to $874 million, to support seven "post-GPU era" underlying technology routes such as CPO, ferroelectric memory, and 3D packaging in the form of equity investments. This marks a shift in the U.S. chip strategy from "capacity reshoring" to "technology route selection."The seven companies and their technology directions include: GlobalFoundries (CPO silicon photonic integration, $300 million), Kepler Computing (ferroelectric 3D memory, $245 million), Multibeam (multi-electron beam direct-write lithography and advanced packaging, $140 million), Extropic (thermodynamic sampling unit TSU, $75 million), Thintronics (ultra-low loss dielectric materials, $50 million), Aeluma (large-size phosphorus-free optoelectronic device substrates, $30 million), and OBSIDIA (hardware zero-trust chip anti-counterfeiting, $34 million). All companies are required to provide non-controlling minority equity to the U.S. government.This move shows that the funding usage of the CHIPS Act is shifting from subsidizing wafer fabs to directly holding equity in cutting-edge technology companies with national capital, in order to secure rule-making authority in the post-Moore era.