Posts written by Patrick Lothian

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IG Group keeps trying to predict prediction markets
IG Group has been trying to predict the prediction market business for nearly two decades. Its record looks like that of a trader who gets in early, loses conviction, sells, buys back, sells again, and then discovers that the market has gone limit-up without him or her.

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Buy the Truth, Sell the Delayed Fact
Trump Media & Technology Group says Truth API will give institutional customers “licensed, real-time access” to posts from the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts beginning August 1, with customers already signed and more onboarding, a 24/7 feed, machine-readable delivery “in milliseconds,” and an archive back to 2022. The company says the customers include “high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms” that need a low-latency feed rather than manual tracking, and interim CEO Kevin McGurn put the pitch plainly: “Markets already move on Truth Social posts.” Reuters reported that Trump Media discussed charging Wall Street traders and investment firms as much as $100,000 a month for the fastest feed, with another $60,000-a-month three-year plan also pitched.

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Pat Kenny Didn’t Retire. He Just Walked Away
Pat Kenny, the most interesting man in the world, as I have repeatedly called him, did not retire. That word would be too small for what he is doing and too final for a man whose career has always taken surprising turns. What he did do is walk away from Broadridge this summer, having seen the CQG deal through to its completion. The acquisition, which was announced in February 2026 and closed in the spring, united CQG’s 46-year legacy as one of the last independent trading technology firms with Broadridge’s global scale, and Pat, as senior vice president, was there for the last 16 years of it.

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Novel Products: Why I’ve Always Leaned Into the Next New Thing
I have always believed that markets exist to solve problems. The futures market was born to help farmers and merchants manage risk and to discover price. Options were created to give investors flexibility and to give math nerds jobs. And somewhere along the way, someone always has an idea for a product that doesn’t fit neatly into any existing box, and that’s where things get interesting.

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The Real Danger of These Hot New Derivatives Is Being Ignored
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission opened a door last month. It approved derivatives called perpetual futures on cryptocurrencies at Kalshi, let Coinbase’s US customers reach its offshore “perps” and published a path for any registered platform to list its own.

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The Role of Prediction Markets, the State of the CFTC, and the Perpetuals Debate with John Lothian
In this episode, John Lothian joins Prediction Markets Report to share his perspective on prediction markets, the CFTC, and perpetuals.

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Perpetual Futures Are Swaps in Futures Clothing and the CFTC Is Letting It Slide
Every week, the CFTC sends me its Swaps Report. Every week, I read it. And every week, I find myself returning to the same question: Does the agency that publishes this report actually know what a swap is anymore?

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Perpetual Futures Are Swaps in Futures Clothing and the CFTC Is Letting It Slide
Every week, the CFTC sends me its Swaps Report. Every week, I read it. And every week, I find myself returning to the same question: Does the agency that publishes this report actually know what a swap is anymore?

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Derivatives Veteran Sees Market Manipulation in Perpetual Futures
James Davies says crypto “perps” repeat flaws from 2013 product—and extract billions from retail traders

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CFTC Moves to Undo Settlement That Had Gemini Pay $5 Million
The US Commodity Trading Commission and Gemini Trust Co., led by the billionaire Winklevoss brothers, want to dissolve a 2025 settlement that resulted in the cryptocurrency exchange agreeing to pay $5 million to end an agency lawsuit.

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Suspected insider accounts net $2.4 million on Polymarket Iran war bets with 98% win rate, firm finds
Nine connected Polymarket accounts have raked in more than $2.4 million betting almost exclusively on U.S. military actions in what digital detectives from the data analytics firm Bubblemaps have identified as a potentially egregious case of insider trading.

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Square Pegs in Round Holes: Why Prediction Markets Don’t Fit the Swap Definition and Why That Matters
Every week, I receive an email from the CFTC with a link to the latest edition of its Swaps Report, a publication the commission has voluntarily elevated from its statutory semiannual obligation to a weekly release, so that market participants and the public can track developments in the swaps markets in something closer to real time.

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GameStop–eBay Tie-Up Could Turn “Old Stuff” Marketplace Into Next-Gen Trading Frontier
EBay has always sat in the derivatives industry’s peripheral vision because it looked like a market, acted like a market, and scaled like a market, but did not come from the exchange world. It was a place where you bought and sold your old stuff. It brought together buyers and sellers, created transparent price discovery, normalized auctions, built trust systems, handled payments and disputes, and taught the public to trade everything from collectibles to cars. That was never futures, options, or swaps, but it was market structure in plain clothes.

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The Great Hesitation
“Donald Trump casts himself as a champion of American business. In many ways, he is. He has slashed corporate taxes. He is rolling back regulations and embracing industries like artificial intelligence. Yet the payoff is far smaller than many business leaders expected, and our economy is losing momentum.

The reason is simple. Mr. Trump’s constant policy swings are offsetting whatever benefits his business-friendly instincts might bring. There is some irony that a president who was elected in part because of his perceived business acumen is instead intensifying one of the most corrosive forces in the economy: the creeping of political dysfunction into capitalism itself.”