Coindesk

Polymarket is 90% Accurate in Predicting World Events: Research

It turns out Polymarket is a crystal ball, which can predict certain events with nearly 90% accuracy, according to a Dune dashboard compiled by New York City-based data scientist Alex McCullough.McCullough studied Polymarket's historical data and removed markets with probabilities above 90% or below 10% after outcomes were already known but not yet settled, to keep the analysis accurate, according to a Dune dashboard summary.Polymarket slightly but consistently overestimates event probabilities across most ranges, potentially due to biases like acquiescence bias, herd mentality, low liquidity, and participant preference for high-risk bets, McCullough's research found.Longer-term markets, ones that ask bettors to consider an event far-out, look more accurate because they include many outcomes that are clearly unlikely, making predictions easier, McCullough...

U.S. Bank Agency Cuts ‘Reputational Risk’ From Exams After Crypto Sector Cites Issues

U.S. national banks have been told by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that they'll no longer have to answer how controversial customers might damage their reputations — a point that had been criticized by crypto companies and insiders arguing that it contributed to them being debanked.The OCC is removing that factor from its supervision handbook, the agency said in a Thursday statement.“The OCC’s examination process has always been rooted in ensuring appropriate risk management processes for bank activities, not casting judgment on how a particular activity may fare with public opinion,” said Acting Comptroller of the Currency Rodney Hood.Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had made a similar commitment in a congressional hearing last month that the Fed...

SEC Chair Nominee Paul Atkins to Face Senate Panel Next Week

Paul Atkins, the nominee to take over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is set for a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing next week, putting President Donald Trump's pick for the SEC chairmanship on track to start working as soon as next month.At the same March 27 hearing, the Senate panel is also weighing the nomination of Jonathan Gould to take over the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees U.S. national banks — a key area of interest for crypto firms that have fought a long battle for banking access, the Senate Banking Committee announced in an email Thursday.Atkins is a former commission of the SEC and a digital assets advocate who ran a Washington firm advising clients...

Proof-of-Work Crypto Mining Doesn’t Trigger Securities Laws, SEC Says

Proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining does not trigger federal securities laws, according to a Thursday staff statement from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which told mining operators they do not need to register their transactions with the regulator.The statement, published by the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, declared that both solo proof-of-work crypto mining and pooled proof-of-work crypto mining do not meet the definition of a securities transaction under the Howey Test — the legal framework used to determine whether a transaction represents an investment contract — because they are “not undertaken with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others.”The statement puts to rest any lingering fears that the SEC’s enforcement division...

Nasdaq’s Shift To Round-The-Clock Stock Trading Due to Crypto, Says Exchange Executive

Stock and other traditional financial asset traders across the world are wanting to be able to buy and sell assets around the clock, resulting in two of the biggest stock markets in the U.S., Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) making moves to offer round-the-clock trading soon.“We definitely see that this is where the markets are moving,” said Giang Bui, Nasdaq’s head of U.S. Equities & Exchange-Traded Products, speaking at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on Thursday. “There's a lot of demand globally for U.S. stocks and people want to trade within the hours that they're typically awake, and I think a lot of it is because people are used to trading crypto 24/7.”Both Nasdaq and...