Backroom deals, sleight of hand allow Polymarket to slip into shadow of FTX’s ghost

The stench of regulatory failure hangs thick over Washington tonight, as the crypto betting platform Polymarket—fresh off the sudden, unexplained dismissal of federal investigations—maneuvers its way back into the U.S. market through a backdoor deal that reeks of the same hubris and legal dodges that brought down Sam Bankman-Fried.

Dennis Kelleher, the relentless watchdog at Better Markets, has sounded the alarm in a scathing letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), demanding answers about Polymarket’s suspicious acquisition of QCX, a long-dormant entity that somehow sprang back to life just in time to serve as the company’s Trojan horse.

The timeline is too convenient, the optics too damning: a CFTC and DOJ probe into Polymarket’s alleged violations mysteriously vanishes in mid-July, and days later, QCX—unused for three years—gets the green light as a registered exchange.

Then, like clockwork, Polymarket announces its purchase of QCX, effectively bypassing the scrutiny it should have faced.

This is not just regulatory negligence—it’s a playbook ripped straight from FTX’s collapse.

Bankman-Fried, now rotting in a federal prison, once exploited the same loopholes, acquiring licensed entities to sidestep oversight before his empire imploded in fraud. And yet, here we are again, with the CFTC asleep at the wheel, allowing history to repeat itself in broad daylight.

Lisa McCormick is calling out Senator Cory Booker for his complicity in this farce.

Booker, who accepted contributions from Bankman-Fried and voted to pass the GENIUS Act—a gift to crypto hustlers that weakens oversight—now watches as another unregulated gambling operation slithers through the cracks. The message is clear: Washington is still for sale, and the crypto cowboys are buying.

But the real scandal lies in the details.

Polymarket was under serious federal investigation—so serious that the FBI raided its CEO’s home, seizing phones and electronics.

Then, poof. The probes vanish. No explanation. No accountability. And in their place, a freshly minted regulatory approval for a shell entity that Polymarket now uses to resurrect its U.S. operations.

Did the CFTC cut a backroom deal? Did someone in the Biden administration look the other way? These are not conspiracy theories—they are urgent questions that demand answers before another crypto catastrophe leaves investors holding the bag.

“The CFTC has a duty to shut this down,” said McCormick. “If it doesn’t, the next FTX-level disaster won’t be an accident—it’ll be a policy choice. And the blood won’t just be on Polymarket’s hands. It’ll be on every regulator, every lawmaker, every enabler like Senator Cory Booker, who let the wolves back into the henhouse.”

The letter has been sent. The warning has been issued.

Now we wait to see if anyone in power cares enough to act—or if the lesson of FTX was truly forgotten before the ink on Bankman-Fried’s sentencing papers even dried.