Blockchain.com, a crypto pockets and change based in 2011, introduced the launch of SnapMarkets, a platform that lets customers wager on whether or not bitcoin’s value will rise or fall in 30-second home windows, on Wednesday.
Stakes begin at $1 in what the corporate calls a skill-based model of prediction markets. The launch comes as prediction markets surge, with market leaders Polymarket and Kalshi seeing a mixed notional buying and selling quantity near $24 billion in April.
The market as an entire noticed $29 billion in quantity that month, Dune knowledge reveals. That features occasion markets throughout classes reminiscent of sports activities, politics and finance.
SnapMarkets has a unique providing for now. As an alternative of contracts tied to election outcomes, sports activities outcomes or macroeconomic occasions, the app presents rapid-fire $BTC value calls that resolve each 30 seconds. A Blockchain.com spokesperson informed CoinDesk extra market codecs are deliberate.
The format makes SnapMarkets nearer to short-term buying and selling than conventional occasion forecasting. Customers choose a course, select a stake and look ahead to the spherical to settle. Over such brief home windows, $BTC value strikes will be troublesome to forecast constantly.
Prediction markets’ regulatory backdrop
Prediction markets spent years preventing the CFTC, together with Kalshi’s courtroom battle over election contracts and Polymarket’s 2022 settlement with the company. However the U.S. posture has modified over the previous yr.
The CFTC dropped its attraction within the Kalshi election-contract case in Might 2025, and the company has since changed into a former foe now giving prediction markets extra tailor-made steering.
That shift has opened a brand new combat between federal and state regulators. State playing authorities have challenged platforms together with Kalshi, Robinhood, Crypto.com, Polymarket and Coinbase, whereas the CFTC has moved to defend its authority over event-contract markets.
CFTC Chair Mike Selig rebuked state efforts to dam prediction markets, and in April the company sued Wisconsin as a part of a broader marketing campaign to defend its jurisdiction.
Nonetheless, yes-or-no monetary merchandise have confronted stricter therapy.
A Blockchain.com spokesperson mentioned the corporate does “not see SnapMarkets as similar to binary choices,” describing the product as a “easy, clear” solution to have interaction with short-term crypto value actions, “not as conventional derivatives merchandise.”
The European Union’s ESMA prohibited binary choices and restricted contracts for distinction for retail buyers in 2018. The U.Ok.’s Monetary Conduct Authority completely banned binary choices for retail customers in 2019. Within the U.S., retail binary choices can solely be supplied by CFTC-regulated venues.
The CFTC has utilized comparable scrutiny to crypto-native occasion markets earlier than. In January 2022, it fined Polymarket $1.4 million and ordered it to wind down U.S. markets, classifying its occasion contracts as unregistered binary choices.
Polymarket later acquired a CFTC-licensed change and clearinghouse for $112 million, making a regulated path again into the U.S. SnapMarkets isn’t obtainable to customers within the U.S. or U.Ok.
SnapMarkets additionally contains reside chat, a real-time value feed, streak monitoring and a worldwide leaderboard. Customers can join a Blockchain.com pockets or one other DeFi pockets. New customers get a non-custodial pockets by default.
The launch suits a broader push by crypto corporations into prediction-style merchandise. Robinhood Predictions, Crypto.com’s OG.com and Kalshi have all leaned into the class over the previous yr. SnapMarkets pushes that development into quicker territory.
