Wanna bet? 🎲

Portugal and Hungary shut down Polymarket

This week, we look at how three news events were covered, focusing on:

• Polymarket getting blocked in multiple countries

• NYSE ringing the bell for tokenised stocks

• The crypto industry rethinking the Clarity Act

[Polymarket zero, Dude?] 🔮

This week, gambling regulators for Hungary and Portugal blocked Polymarket from working in their countries.

The Context 🧑‍💻:

• Portugal grew concerned when $4.3m in bets poured into a prediction market on the presidential election after voting concluded but before results were announced; it believed someone may have been using non-public information to profit off the election. Hungary, meanwhile, has paused Polymarket access while it determines whether it’s illegal gambling.

• Other countries, such as Ukraine and France, have taken similar lines on Polymarket and competitor Kalshi, seeing them as gambling sites. In the US, their regulatory status is still being ironed out: Are these prediction markets — as they advertise — and therefore regulated by the Commodity Futures Trade Commission (CFTC)? Or gambling platforms — as states and casinos argue — that therefore should be regulated by individual states?

• As The New York Times points out, they operate differently from sports books because they “do not serve as the ‘house,’ taking the opposite side of a bet.” Users buy “event contracts” instead of making “bets.” The Atlantic isn’t buying these distinctions, saying it’s “hilarious” that these markets aren’t called gambling.

• There’s also the insider trading problem. The Portugal story follows an earlier potential inside trade on the ouster of Venezuelan President Maduro. Kalshi says it doesn’t allow insider trading, but Polymarket has been less vocal about this. Moreover, some people suggest insider trading is good because it leads to more accurate probabilities.

The Coverage 📰:

• “Portugal orders Polymarket blocked after election bets surge before results announced” (The Block)

• “Polymarket hit by fresh European crackdowns as Hungary, Portugal block access” (Cointelegraph)

• “All Bets Are On: The Rise of Prediction Markets” (The New York Times)

• “America Is Slow-Walking Into a Polymarket Disaster” (The Atlantic)

PR Perspective 🔎:

The crackdown may heighten public skepticism, stall adoption, and increase volatility. But it also gives platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi more opportunities to make the case why they’re not simply gambling sites — and state how they should be treated by regulators instead.

[Platform over function?] 📈

The owner of the New York Stock Exchange announced it is building a blockchain-based platform for trading tokenised stocks and other securities 24/7.

The Context 🧑‍💻:

• Tokenised securities are digital representations of stocks and bonds that reside on a blockchain. Because blockchains don’t shut down like a stock market does, people will be able to trade them outside traditional hours, and payments can settle faster.

• Robinhood and Kraken already offer tokenised stocks for Europeans to trade US equities. Now, the biggest stock exchange in the world is trying to keep up with the innovators. To do so, it will need approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

• Fast Company noted that NYSE hasn’t said when any of this will happen. And a Fortune opinion piece argues the press release is “chockful of hype and buzzwords but contains very little in the way of details.” Which blockchain? Which token standards? Who can use it? But the announcement does make clear that it will preserve intermediaries, leading the author to believe this is just the “status quo” masquerading as innovation.

The Coverage 📰:

• “NYSE will launch tokenised securities trading platform with stablecoin funding” (DL News)

• “What are tokenized securities? Risks and what to know as stock exchange NYSE embraces the blockchain?” (Fast Company)

• “The NYSE’s big tokenization plan is vaporware dressed up as innovation” (Fortune)

PR Perspective 🔎:

Traditional finance is no longer just experimenting with blockchain but actively integrating it into core infrastructure. Though the NYSE stock exchange will continue functioning as usual, the creation of the platform could change how things operate over the long term — if the attempt is innovation and not just an attempt to seem innovative.

[Lack of Clarity?] 🏦

The industry is divided on whether to support the Senate’s market structure bill in its current form, threatening to delay the first comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto.

The Context 🧑‍💻:

• Until now, the crypto industry has been pushing for the “Clarity Act,” which would become the first regulatory framework for all of crypto. The bill aims to delineate the roles of the SEC and CFTC, clarify which tokens are securities and which aren’t, and give crypto firms clear rules for staying compliant.

• Two different versions of a bill have been moving forward, albeit shakily, in two separate committees. The Agriculture committee (which oversees the CFTC) last week postponed a hearing as it recognised the bill didn’t have sufficient bipartisan support. After industry divisions emerged over key provisions, the banking committee also postponed its hearing.

• There are three hangups with the Clarity Act: 1) Can stablecoins offer rewards? (The crypto industry wants them, but the banking lobby doesn’t.) 2) How will DeFi platforms running on smart contracts be regulated? (Developers have been jailed when their code has been used for illicit purposes.) 3) Will the bill block elected officials from profiting from crypto ventures while in office? (Democrats are pushing for this.)

• The stablecoin rewards provision has become particularly contentious, with some industry players concerned about a proposal to close a measure (formed by last year’s GENIUS Act) that lets stablecoins give yield back to customers. However, other prominent crypto groups want the bill to proceed and feel the stablecoin issue can be smoothed out later in the legislative process, highlighting the industry’s internal divisions.

The Coverage 📰:

• “The Next Steps On CLARITY Will Define Crypto Policy In 2026” (Forbes)

• “Crypto industry turns against US bill it had pushed to regulate digital assets” (The Financial Times)

PR Perspective 🔎:

It seems all parties are open to reworking the bill to get it into a state where it can pass. But midterms are coming up, and crypto allies may find themselves out of power. The Trump administration has been keen on crypto, but the industry would also like to get regulation in writing in case the political atmosphere changes again.[Tweet of The Week]

Credit: @zachpogrob

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The usual disclaimer: This newsletter collates the main themes and headlines of the week in DeFi/crypto/metaverse/Web3/NFT land and tries to provide unbiased context. It’s aimed at anyone who wants to keep an eye on the space. It’s put together by a team at YAP and doesn’t contain any promotion of our clients (if one is mentioned, we’ll flag that).

The team: Founder Samantha Yap and consulting editor Jeff Benson, Andrew Wickerson, Nathalie Larrea, Meghna Dembla, Samvidha Sharma, William Knight, Taylor Handler, Abby Rose Notarnicola, and TJ Thomas. Your feedback is, as always, welcome. Ping us at thecontext@yapglobal.com. Old newsletters can be found here.

This newsletter is prepared by YAP Global, an international PR Consultancy focusing on helping cryptocurrency, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) and brands through impactful storytelling. Find out more about us here.