Coinbase Bets on Predictions With The Clearing Company Purchase

Coinbase is expanding its new prediction markets business by acquiring The Clearing Company.

The acquisition, announced Monday (Dec. 22), comes days after Coinbase said it would begin offering access to prediction markets in the U.S.

“Prediction markets let people trade on real-world events across everything from elections and the economy to sports and culture,” the company said on its blog. “We have an opportunity to enable millions of customers around the world to seamlessly participate in prediction markets right alongside their cash, crypto, equities, and derivatives portfolios.”

Coinbase’s new offering is happening in partnership with Kalshi. By acquiring The Clearing Company, the platform gets “the specialized talent needed to take this category further,” the blog post added.

The Clearing Company is led by founder Toni Gemayel, who Coinbase described as “a visionary product and growth leader who helped shape the modern prediction markets landscape.”

The company says its prediction market effort is part of its planned “Everything Exchange,” where users can trade every asset class.

In related news, Coinbase last week sued Connecticut, Michigan and Illinois, challenging each state’s efforts to control or prohibit prediction markets. The company argues that the markets fall under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and not individual state gaming regulators.

“Some states think prediction markets fall outside the CFTC’s jurisdiction when they relate to sports,” Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, wrote last week in a post on the X social media platform. “But Congress deliberately chose to exclude only a handful of specific underliers—including ‘onions’ and ‘motion picture box office receipts’—from the definition of ‘commodity.’ This makes clear that all other subjects (including sporting events) fall within the CFTC’s scope.”

PYMNTS reported earlier this month that prediction markets are the latest flash point between federal and state regulators. While real-time prediction markets technically fall under the purview of the CFTC, an increasing number of states have moved to shut down the markets they see as unlicensed or illegal gambling operations.

“Fueling the controversy is the explosive growth in online prediction markets and the flow of venture capital money into the industry,” the report said. “Total trading volumes exceeded $28 billion globally in 2025, with weekly peaks of $2 billion, and the largest market, Kalshi, is valued at $11 billion.”