Treasury will buy more government bonds than previously announced. The market remains ‘underwhelmed. ’
Treasury will buy more government bonds than previously announced. The market remains ‘underwhelmed. ’. The Treasury Department said it would buy back $6 billion in U. S. government debt, exceeding the amount previously announced in its effort to contain bond yields.
What happened
Skip to main contentSave this storySave this storyThe US government launched at least three previously unreported investigations into trading on the prediction market Polymarket, according to documents obtained by WIRED through a Freedom of Information Act request. Voting records from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets, shed new light on how the government approaches these investigations. In early May, CFTC chairman Michael Selig approved an order allowing the agency’s enforcement division to launch a private investigation into potential insider trading on Polymarket event contracts related to pardons issued by former president Joseph Biden.
The documents obtained by WIRED did not specify which trades were under suspicion, but the order came several weeks after an NPR report on a suspicious Polymarket trader who netted over $300,000 on pardon-related markets in the final days of the Biden administration. This time, the topic was “Iran event contracts” on Polymarket. As with the Biden pardon documents, the investigation order did not provide details, but it came two weeks after 60 Minutes aired a report on a network of suspicious Polymarket accounts that made $2.
The agency has come under fire in the second Trump era for its perceived friendliness to the prediction market industry.
The wider picture
In July, Selig greenlit a third investigation, this time focused on suspected insider trading on Google-themed Polymarket event contracts. “While we do not comment on specific investigations, we regularly refer matters to law enforcement and support ongoing investigations as part of our commitment to protecting the integrity of our markets,” Olivia Chalos, deputy chief legal officer at Polymarket, told WIRED in an email. The CFTC is also reportedly investigating Polymarket itself. The company, which had its flagship platform banned from the United States in 2022, was permitted to launch a US-regulated version with a narrower set of markets in late 2025.
The CFTC has also launched investigations into potential insider trading on Kalshi, Polymarket’s archrival, in the past. Kalshi issued its first-ever lifetime ban to Santos for violating its rules on market manipulation for the same behavior, and also fined him just over $71,000. So far, two arrests have been made stemming from Polymarket insider trading investigations. Both men are fighting back by arguing that Polymarket trades are a form of betting and not subject to commodities law.
What has been reported
She covers prediction markets, the future of media, and how AI is changing the internet. She’s also interested in digital grey markets and regulatory battles over new tech. The order granted permission to take testimony, obtain subpoenas, administer oaths, and require the production of documents in the course of the investigation. The trader correctly wagered that the former president would issue preemptive pardons to a number of prominent MAGA critics, including former US representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and US senator Adam Schiff.
At the end of May, Selig approved another investigation order. 4 million on Iran-related trades, with a 98 percent win rate. “If these investigations are being prompted solely by press reports of potential violations of the Commodities Exchange Act, that’s a significant sign of weakness in this regulatory scheme,” says Joseph Konizeski, a former chief trial attorney in the CFTC’s division of enforcement. In an email exchange included in the documents obtained by WIRED, Paul Hayeck, the acting director of the CFTC’s department of enforcement, noted that the investigation would focus on “additional individuals who may have engaged in insider trading related to Google’s 2025 Year in Search Ranking. ” Hayeck wrote that the Southern District of New York is conducting a “parallel investigation. ” He specified that the CFTC's investigation would be separate from the ongoing case against Michele Spagnuolo, a Google engineer accused of insider trading.
What happens next
It pointed WIRED to a statement it released in June noting that Spagnuolo was no longer with the company. The CFTC did not respond to requests for comment and questions about the status of the investigations. It recently underwent a fundraising round led by Donald Trump Jr. ’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, which valued the company at $21 billion. According to The New York Times, Kalshi has referred at least 32 cases to the agency. The CFTC fined former US representative George Santos $35,000 for his behavior related to a Kalshi contract about whether he would attend Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address.
In April, federal authorities arrested a US special forces officer who prosecutors say used classified information to make more than $400,000 in profits on event contracts related to the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. And in May, Spagnuolo, who allegedly made over $1.