Brett Cooper

They do not require traditional ID verification to sign up, and they use crypto wallets instead of bank accounts.

And obviously, cryptocurrency is lauded as the thing that is very private and secure.

It is anonymous.

And so while I, somebody who has never met anything, does not spend any time on these apps, like literally has never interacted with them, I initially saw these two platforms as being synonymous.

But there is a big difference, and this is going to be important.

Listen to this.

Kalshi is generally considered more regulated than PolyMarket within the US because it is a direct, federally regulated exchange approved

by the CFTC.

Kalshi operates under strict CFTC oversight, whereas Polymarket is considered more crypto native and has only recently expanded its U.S.

presence, having faced more scrutiny over its decentralized international structure.

Now, what I also didn't know is the Polymarket actually was not legal in the United States until the middle of last year, and it actually is still not legal in every state.

And while Polymarket does seem more secure and anonymous based on all of that information, it's not totally

untraceable because every transaction is recorded on the blockchain.

And so while your name is not attached publicly, that wallet, that crypto wallet can often be traced back to you or back to a certain individual, even if they do not have all of your information, especially if you have ever bought crypto through a platform like Coinbase prior to this.

So it is not fully anonymous.

It is just harder to track than, let's say, the stock market, because we already know that everyone and their mother can just watch what Nancy Pelosi and her husband are trading on a daily basis.

And if you're smart, you're following that and making a bunch of money.

Anyway, I will say, as Alex and I have been talking about this entire thing literally since

January, I've debated doing this episode and I debated angling it more just to talk about the rise of gambling as a vice in our society, how we are seeing young people blow all of their money on these ridiculous bets.

But like I said, it has become abundantly clear that we cannot ignore this.