What Is Polymarket US?

Where Polymarket US came from: the QCEX route

Polymarket didn't petition its way back into the U.S. from scratch — it bought the license. In July 2025, Polymarket acquired the holding company behind QCEX for $112 million in cash and equity. QCEX was two entities: QCX LLC, a CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange, and QC Clearing LLC, its clearinghouse. Buying an already-licensed exchange-and-clearinghouse pair is a well-worn shortcut into U.S. regulated markets — it hands you the hardest, slowest thing to obtain, the federal designation, on day one. (Rothera later took the same route into its own CFTC license, buying LedgerX/MIAXdx rather than applying fresh.)

The underlying entity had already been years in the making. QCX LLC — then part of Quadcode Group's QCEX, founded by Sergei Dobrovolskii — filed its Designated Contract Market application exhibits with the CFTC in November 2023 and received its formal order of designation on July 9, 2025. Polymarket closed its acquisition less than two weeks later, on July 21, 2025, rebranding the operation "Polymarket US." As part of the deal consideration, Quadcode Group retained a minority equity stake in Polymarket.

From there the regulatory path moved quickly. On November 25, 2025, the CFTC approved an Amended Order of Designation permitting Polymarket US to operate an intermediated trading platform — U.S. users access the market through futures commission merchants (FCMs) and standard brokerage plumbing, not directly from a crypto wallet. That word, "intermediated," is doing real work: it's the legal mechanism that lets a regulated U.S. exchange take retail customers through the same custody-and-clearing rails traditional markets already run on.

How Polymarket US is built

Polymarket US is a Designated Contract Market — the same regulatory category that governs futures exchanges like the CME, and the category Kalshi also operates under. Every market is built on the same instrument every prediction market uses: a binary, Yes/No event contract that settles at $1.00 if the outcome happens and $0.00 if it doesn't, fully collateralized with no margin or leverage, so the price reads directly as the market's implied probability. Trades clear through QC Clearing LLC, the affiliated Derivatives Clearing Organization, and reach users through intermediaries — the way a brokerage routes an order to a stock exchange — rather than a self-custodied wallet signing a transaction on-chain.

Polymarket US is not "Polymarket, now available in America." It's a parallel, purpose-built venue that exists because the original, on-chain product couldn't legally be offered to Americans.

How Polymarket US differs from global Polymarket

These are not the same product wearing different jackets — the differences are structural, not cosmetic.

The practical upshot: PMUS and global Polymarket are separate order books with separate liquidity. A topic priced on one is not the same instrument priced on the other, even when the question is worded identically — they're worth reading as two distinct platforms, not one Polymarket number.

What Polymarket US lists

Polymarket US opened on December 3, 2025 with a sports-first lineup — NFL, college football, NBA, NHL, college basketball, and soccer — with proposition markets slated to follow. The catalog has since broadened into politics and elections, economics (CPI prints and Federal Reserve rate decisions among them), entertainment awards, and daily-high-temperature weather contracts, organized the way every venue here is: a market groups related events into a series, an event is one dated instance (a single game, a single CPI release), and a contract is the tradeable Yes/No line inside it.

In May 2026, Polymarket US dropped its invite waitlist entirely, opening to all eligible U.S. adults on iOS — the exchange currently has no Android app.

How Polymarket US differs from Kalshi

Here the comparison is closer, and more interesting, because Kalshi and Polymarket US are genuine peers — both CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Markets settling in U.S. dollars. (For the fuller two-way comparison, see Kalshi vs. Polymarket.)

Maturity and breadth. Kalshi has operated as a CFTC-regulated exchange for years and lists markets across economics, politics, weather, sports, and current events. Polymarket US launched in late 2025 and opened narrow — sports first — with the rest of its catalog still rolling out behind it. It's the newer, leaner venue of the two.

Fees. Polymarket US publishes a probability-based fee schedule rather than a flat per-contract rate: the fee scales with how uncertain a contract's price is, so a contract trading near 50¢ carries the highest fee and one trading near the extremes carries the least. Note that the widely cited "zero fees on geopolitical and world-events markets" is a feature of global Polymarket's fee schedule, not Polymarket US's — the two shouldn't be conflated on pricing any more than on access.

Structure. Both clear through CFTC-regulated infrastructure and settle in dollars. The day-to-day distinction is catalog depth and liquidity, not regulatory standing.

Where Polymarket US sits in the field

Polymarket US is a third pillar of the regulated U.S. prediction-market landscape, alongside Kalshi and the newer wave of broker-routed venues like Rothera. Its arrival matters less for any single market it lists than for what it signals: the most recognizable name in prediction markets chose to re-enter the U.S. through full federal regulation rather than route around it.

• Kalshi is a centralized, CFTC-regulated exchange that faces retail directly and leads the category on total volume, driven heavily by sports.
• Polymarket US shares that regulatory shape — a CFTC DCM settling in dollars — but carries global Polymarket's brand and political/current-events sensibility into a narrower, newer, iOS-only catalog.
• Global Polymarket remains the large, on-chain, USDC-settled sibling — off-limits to U.S. residents, and a separate platform entirely.

For the regulatory backdrop behind all of this, see prediction-market legality by state and are prediction markets legal in the U.S.?

Company & funding

QCX LLC (d/b/a Polymarket US) is wholly owned by Polymarket following its $112M acquisition of QCEX (QCX LLC + QC Clearing LLC) from Quadcode Group in July 2025. Quadcode Group retained a minority equity stake in Polymarket as part of the deal consideration. Polymarket itself is privately held, led by founder/CEO Shayne Coplan.

• $112M acquisition price (cash plus Polymarket equity) for QCX LLC (DCM) and QC Clearing LLC (DCO), announced July 21, 2025.
• QC Clearing LLC is Polymarket US's CFTC-registered Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) — the clearinghouse side of the acquired QCEX operation.
• Distinct legal entity and data feed from Polymarket's original offshore, blockchain-based platform at polymarket.com — see TickerTracker's separate Polymarket profile.

Timeline

Regulatory status

Polymarket US operates under QCX LLC, a CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Market (DCM), with clearing handled by its affiliate QC Clearing LLC, a registered Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO). Both licenses predate Polymarket's ownership: the underlying entity — then part of Quadcode Group's QCEX — received its DCM designation from the CFTC on July 9, 2025, and Polymarket acquired the whole operation for $112 million less than two weeks later, rebranding it "Polymarket US."

• Federally regulated venue. As a CFTC-designated contract market, Polymarket US lists and settles event contracts under the same regulatory category as Kalshi — full federal oversight of listing, trading, and clearing, not a state gaming license.
• Fully collateralized, no leverage. Polymarket US lists only fully collateralized event contracts; every position is backed dollar-for-dollar, with no margin.
• Separate from global Polymarket. Polymarket US is a distinct legal entity and regulatory regime from Polymarket's original offshore, blockchain-based platform at polymarket.com. The two share a parent company and a brand, but not a rulebook or a data feed — see our Polymarket profile for that platform.

This is informational, not legal advice. Verify current regulatory status directly with the CFTC or Polymarket US before relying on it.

Frequently asked questions