Coinbase has agreed to acquire The Clearing Company, an on-chain prediction market startup spanning digital assets, politics, sports, and culture, expanding its Everything Exchange efforts to offer a wide range of investment products.
In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, Coinbase said it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire The Clearing Company, with the transaction expected to close in January. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The acquisition marks a rapid turnaround for The Clearing Company, which was founded earlier this year and added Coinbase Ventures as an investor in a $15 million funding round, along with Union Square Ventures, Haun Ventures, and several other venture firms and angel investors.
The Clearing Company is an on-chain prediction market platform built by veterans of the cryptocurrency, prediction markets, and cloud infrastructure space. It was founded by Toni Gemayel, who previously worked at prediction market platforms Polymarket and Kalshi. Its wide-ranging team brings experience from companies such as Polymarket, 0x, Dune, and Coinbase.
Coinbase announced the acquisition less than a week after announcing its entry into prediction markets as part of its broader “Everything Exchange” strategy in partnership with Kalshi.
At the same time, Coinbase announced that it would begin offering stock trading and further expand its product lineup beyond digital assets.
Taken together, the acquisition highlights how event-based markets are moving closer to the mainstream of regulated finance, with crypto infrastructure increasingly serving as the backbone of emerging market types.
“Everything Exchange is a unified platform for trading cryptocurrencies, stocks, and anything else people want to trade,” Max Bransberg, Coinbase’s vice president of product management, told Cointelegraph. “Prediction markets are a key part of that platform.”
A Coinbase spokesperson added that markets tied to real-world outcomes are a “natural extension of modern financial infrastructure.”
sauce: Haun Ventures
This momentum is unfolding as the regulatory landscape changes. Last month, The Clearing Company applied to become a derivatives clearing house with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a step toward further integrating prediction markets into the established financial framework.
Related: Coinbase borrows Kalsi’s strategy, sues three states over prediction markets
Why Coinbase bets on prediction markets
Coinbase’s move into prediction markets comes as the company increasingly views the space as a major growth opportunity rather than a niche product.
In its latest market outlook report, featured by Cointelegraph, Coinbase identified prediction markets as one of the most important categories to watch through 2026, citing rising user engagement, regulatory clarity, and expanding real-world use cases.
In its report, Coinbase pointed to a tax provision in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that would cap the deduction of losses on gambling winnings to 90% from the current 100%.
While the changes may seem modest, Coinbase warned that they could result in taxpayers being taxed on so-called “phantom income” even if their net profits are minimal or they incur losses.
In this environment, Coinbase argued that prediction markets, which rely on contracts structurally similar to derivatives, could emerge as a more tax-efficient alternative to traditional sportsbooks and casinos, especially if they are treated differently for tax purposes.
Prediction market activity has surged since the 2024 US presidential election. sauce: coinbase
Prediction markets are still a relatively nascent industry, but the field is already dominated by a few large players. Chief among them is Polymarket. Polymarket is a decentralized platform built on the Polygon network that allows users to trade based on political, economic, and cultural outcomes using blockchain-based contracts.
Kalsi has also emerged as a major, centralized company operating under US regulatory oversight. Meanwhile, publicly traded sports betting company DraftKings is moving into the prediction markets space with plans to eventually offer contracts linked to cryptocurrencies.
DraftKings joins a growing list of companies that have expressed interest in the space, including derivatives clearing organization Bitnomial Clearinghouse and crypto exchange Gemini.
Related: Polymarket shows stronger retention than most DeFi, wallets, and exchanges
