Markets

European markets opened lower on Monday as threats from US President Donald Trump reignited a trade war with traditional allies across the Atlantic.

At around 10am CET, France’s CAC 40 had slipped 1.28%, Germany’s DAX was down 1.02%, and the UK’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.27%. Spain’s IBEX 35 fell 0.59% and Italy’s FTSE MIB slid 1.43%. Meanwhile, the wider STOXX 600 fell 0.87%.

European leaders will meet this week to decide how best to respond to threats from US President Donald Trump to acquire Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory.

Washington announced on Saturday that eight European countries would face a 10% tariff on their US exports from 1 February unless they support the US’ proposal to purchase Greenland. This rate will rise to 25% in June if no deal is reached.

Specifically, the threat targets Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and Finland.

Standing firm in their support for Greenland’s right to self-determination and Denmark’s sovereignty, EU member states are weighing their options. One possibility is the use of retaliatory tariffs on €93bn of US goods, a measure that was floated then abandoned last year during an earlier trade stand-off with Washington. Another proposal includes the activation of an anti-coercion tool, which enables the EU to impose punitive economic measures on a country seeking to force a policy change.

Shares in European carmakers saw a significant drop on Monday morning, with the STOXX Europe 600 Automobiles & Parts Index falling more than 2% and hitting a 52-week low. BMW shares were down 4.10% at just after 10am CET, while Volvo and Volkswagen were down 2.21% and 3.43% respectively.

Europe’s luxury goods sector also opened lower, with the STOXX Europe Luxury 10 dropping almost 3%.

On the other hand, safe haven assets such as gold and silver hit new highs as investors moved away from riskier assets such as crypto. Bullion neared $4,700 an ounce on Monday, climbing over 1.66%, and silver prices crossed the $94 threshold.

Defence stocks also rallied in Europe, with the STOXX Europe aerospace and defence index up 0.49%. Thales rose 2.41%, Rheinmetall was up 2.89%, Leonardo shares jumped 3.05%, and BAE systems rose 1.77%.

Markets in Asia also saw a downturn. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.65%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.05%, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.33%. Korea’s Kospi and China’s SSE Composite Index both bucked the trend, closing higher.

US markets are closed today for the Martin Luther King public holiday, but S&P futures slid around 1.18%.

As of around 10am CET, the dollar had fallen 0.21% against the euro.

With last summer’s trade deal between the US and the EU hanging in the balance, investors will be focused on further announcements from the two trading powers.

“The flare-up over Greenland and the threat of renewed tariffs are very unwelcome for European industry. This comes at a time when industrial sentiment has finally started to rise, with businesses seemingly having learnt to live with last year’s tariff volatility,” said analysts from ING.

“These developments will focus European minds on the need to generate domestic demand and potentially even push through sluggish reforms such as the Savings and Investment Union, to allow Europe’s capital markets to better compete with those of the US,” they added.

Markets will also be tracking announcements coming from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which starts this week. Trump will address the Forum on Wednesday.

For years, stablecoins have been marketed as crypto’s potential bridge to normal, everyday payments — or at least what most people consider to be normal.

In 2025, they seemed to have made the jump from a promising prospect to a tool increasingly used by institutions, banks, and even previous crypto non-believers.

Total transaction volumes for stablecoins surged by 72% last year, reaching a massive $33tr (€28tr), according to data from Artemis Analytics.

Stablecoins are crypto assets designed to maintain a stable value by pegging their worth to a real-world asset such as the US dollar. Essentially, they represent a digital copy of a circulating currency.

Since cryptocurrencies are not typically controlled by regular banking institutions and their circulation is not regulated by the monetary policies of governments, monetary institutions were reluctant to use them in their transactions.

Unlike other crypto assets, stablecoins aim to maintain a fixed value relative to a government-issued currency and are backed by that currency, as well as other reserves like treasury bills, to guarantee the token can be redeemed on a 1:1 basis.

Over 90% of stablecoins in circulation today are pegged to the US dollar. The two largest are Tether’s USDT, with a market cap of $186bn (€160bn), and Circle’s USDC, with a market cap of $75bn (€65bn). In 2025, Circle facilitated $18.3tr (€15.7tr) worth of transactions, while USDT racked up $13.3tr (€11.4tr) in transaction volume.

Back in October, a report by a16z, a California-based venture capital firm, also attempted to measure organic stablecoin payments in 2025. The fund concluded that on an adjusted basis, stablecoins had done at least $9tr (€7.7tr) in “real” user payments. This value indicates an 87% increase from 2024 and the report states “it is more than five times PayPal’s throughput and more than half of Visa’s”.

As financial institutions turn their attention to stablecoins, key institutions like the International Monetary Fund are advocating for cooperation among economic blocs to build an international framework for the sector.

However, the current approach to stablecoin issuance and regulation differs significantly among governments in the EU, US, China, and other parts of the world.

What are CBDCs?

Besides stablecoins that are issued and supported by private entities and reserves, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have emerged.

These are also digital versions of government-issued currencies, backed by the issuing central bank. However, they do not use decentralised blockchain technology in their core transaction system.

According to McKinsey, cash still accounts for 46% of payments worldwide as of 2025, but non-digital transactions are declining, particularly in developed countries with greater digital infrastructure and financial inclusion.

Governments and central banks understand these changing payment trends, and in many countries, CBDCs offer a viable solution.

China launched its digital yuan (e-CNY) as part of a pilot project in 2019 and the roll-out has since expanded.

As for the EU, the European Central Bank is currently working on a digital euro. In October 2025, the ECB announced that the preparation phase had concluded.

The President of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, stated that “we have done our work, we have carried the water, but it’s now for the European Council and certainly later on for the European Parliament to identify whether the Commission’s proposal is satisfactory”.

The Eurosystem is aiming for a first issuance in 2029.

Trump’s stablecoin strategy

Under the Trump administration, the US has taken the exact opposite approach to CBDCs, in favour of stablecoins.

In his first week in office, back in January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order “prohibiting agencies from undertaking any action to establish, issue or promote CBDCs in the US or abroad”.

This cleared the way for USDT, USDC, and all other privately issued US dollar stablecoins to continue to dominate the market without having to compete with an “official” version.

In July 2025, Trump also signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act), creating a comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins.

Among other provisions, the law requires stablecoin issuers to maintain full reserve backing of their token, on a 1:1 basis, with liquid assets such as US dollars, treasury bills, and bonds.

For the Trump administration, if a US dollar stablecoin issuer is successful, that means they will progressively increase their supply, which requires them to constantly purchase US debt for their reserves.

Stablecoin regulation in the EU

In China, the introduction of the digital yuan also meant the explicit prohibition of stablecoins in the mainland.

However, in the EU, the looming launch of the digital euro has not translated into stablecoin bans.

For now, stablecoin adoption is growing in Europe and stablecoin issuers, together with other crypto firms, have a compliance framework under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.

By July of this year, the transition period ends for securing a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) licence, required to operate legally.

The France-based multinational payments provider, Ingenico, announced a partnership with WalletConnect, a protocol that connects crypto wallets with applications, enabling stablecoin payments at scale.

Through a new payment solution called WalletConnect Pay, merchants can accept USDC and EURC, among other stablecoins, using existing Ingenico payment terminals.

WalletConnect’s CEO, Jess Houlgrave, told Euronews that “MiCA is not perfect, nor is it the end-state of crypto regulation in the EU, but some regulatory clarity is better than none”.

Additionally, the CEO underlined that uniform enforcement is important to stop “regulatory shopping” between different jurisdictions, where crypto firms simply choose the version of the rules that suits them best.

Euronews also spoke with the general counsel of Crossmint, Miguel Zapatero. The company provides stablecoin infrastructure for businesses.

With a key base in Spain, Crossmint secured a MiCA licence with the Spanish regulator (CNMV) this week. When asked about the procedure, the general Zapatero said that “the barriers to entry are difficult and costly for small businesses, as the requirements are the same for a major bank or a crypto startup”.

Zapatero added that “once you acquire a CASP licence, businesses trust you more, and other regulators around the world tend to expedite their own procedures with you, as the MiCA is one of the most strict crypto regulations globally”.

These statements echo the EU’s touted doctrine of “regulating by example”, although the risk of overcomplexity looms — threatening to stifle innovation.

Latin American financial assets have emerged among the best-performing markets worldwide at the start of 2026, driven by an unusual alignment of positive political catalysts, strong commodity prices, and renewed global appetite for emerging markets.

Equities and currencies across the region have sharply outpaced developed markets, reversing several years of relative underperformance.

The shift in sentiment has been triggered by a sequence of closely timed developments.

A sustained upswing in commodity prices — particularly industrial and precious metals — has strengthened the outlook for South America’s export-driven economies.

And while the full consequences of the recent US seizure of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro have yet to play out, some investors view the ousting as positive. A number hope the move will reduce geopolitical tail risks long associated with the region.

Adding to the momentum, the announcement of the EU–Mercosur trade agreement revived expectations of deeper trade integration between Europe and Latin America, even as doubts remain over its full implementation.

Global macro conditions have also played a decisive role. Major investment banks, including Bank of America and AllianceBernstein, indicate that a weaker US dollar in 2026 is boosting the appeal of emerging market assets.

Historically, periods of dollar weakness have coincided with strong emerging market performance, as capital shifts toward countries where returns are higher.

Countries most exposed to metals markets have been the primary beneficiaries. Chile and Peru — key producers of copper, silver and gold — have enjoyed substantial windfall gains from the metals rally.

Chile, the world’s largest copper exporter, shipped 14.9 million tonnes of the metal in 2024, according to ITC Trade Map data.

Latin America shines among top-performing global markets

Performance data compiled by CountryETFTracker show that five Latin American countries now rank among the world’s ten best-performing equity markets over the past three months.

Chilean stocks are up 36.6% since mid-October, making them the best-performing investable equity market globally via exchange-traded funds. Simultaneously, the Chilean peso has appreciated more than 8% over the past two months, reflecting improved terms of trade and renewed portfolio inflows.

Argentina has been another standout, with a 27.45% rally in equity markets since October. Investors have responded positively to the liberalisation reforms introduced by President Javier Milei, who took office in December 2023.

The International Monetary Fund, in its latest Regional Economic Outlook, credited the Milei administration with enacting “an ambitious package of market-oriented reforms” targeting productivity, regulatory simplification, and fiscal sustainability.

The IMF noted that, if sustained, these reforms could yield substantial medium-term gains by opening Argentina’s economy and improving investor confidence. That’s despite the fact that such austerity forms were particularly unpopular with the general public when first announced, triggering protests in Argentina.

Beyond Chile and Argentina, Peru has posted equity gains of around 27%, with the Peruvian sol now trading at its strongest level relative to the dollar in over five years.

Elsewhere, equities in Colombia rose about 16%, and Brazil has rounded out the regional leaders with a 12.9% rally.

By contrast, the US S&P 500 has gained just 4.8% over the same period, while Germany’s DAX is up around 5%, underscoring Latin America’s marked relative outperformance.

EU–Mercosur agreement signals strategic shift for Latin America

The long-awaited EU–Mercosur trade agreement, more than two decades in the making, is set to be formally signed on 17 January in Paraguay, marking a turning point in relations between Europe and South America.

For the founding members of the Mercosur bloc — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — the accord represents their first major trade agreement with an external partner, opening preferential access to a market of nearly 450 million EU consumers.

“The approval of the EU–Mercosur trade agreement is a landmark moment, creating the largest free trade area in the world by population,” Ángel Talavera, head of European macro at Oxford Economics, said in a note.

Combined, the EU and Mercosur economies account for around a quarter of global GDP and roughly 780 million people.

For Latin American markets, experts say the significance goes beyond improved agricultural access to Europe. The agreement is expected to lower tariff and non-tariff barriers on industrial inputs, particularly benefitting manufacturing-heavy economies such as Brazil and Argentina by reducing costs, improving competitiveness and strengthening supply-chain integration.

According to a study by Banco Santander, the deal is poised to transform trade and investment flows across South America. The EU already accounts for close to €370bn in foreign direct investment into Mercosur and over €125bn in annual trade.

Brazil’s Institute for Applied Economic Research expects the deal could lift Brazil’s GDP by around 0.5 percentage points and raise investment by 1.5 percentage points annually, reflecting stronger export prospects and increased foreign direct investment.

Estimates from Real Instituto Elcano and the Bank of Spain suggest EU–Latin America trade could expand by up to 70% over time, while intra-regional trade within Latin America could rise by as much as 40%.

A turning point for Latin America?

Latin America’s recent strong performance in global financial markets seems to reflect more than just cyclical tailwinds.

Rising commodity prices, easing geopolitical risks, and a weaker US dollar have all helped draw global investors back to the region after years of underperformance.

At the same time, reform momentum in countries such as Argentina and renewed trade links with Europe have improved perceptions of policy stability and long-term growth potential.

While challenges remain and many of the economic benefits will take time to materialise, markets are increasingly viewing Latin America as a relative bright spot among emerging economies.

For now, the region’s combination of high returns, improving fundamentals, and strategic relevance in global trade is proving hard for investors to ignore.

A FAMOUS market in a UK city has started a £9million revamp project.

Grainger Market in Newcastle is being renovated in hopes of rivalling the best of Europe‘s indoor markets, such as Grand Bazaar in Istanbul and Foodhallen in Amsterdam.

Works on the market include creating a pavilion upstairs and adding new flooring, according to the BBC.

There will also be new toilets at the venue as well as seating areas to eventually host gigs and plays.

Hand-painted signs and ceramic tiles with street names on the floor will make navigating around the market easier too.

The project is expected to be completed in the first part of this year.

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The market is known for selling a variety of products from independent businesses.

For example, you can pick up fresh meat or fish, cheese and baked goods.

There are a number of street food options at the market as well such as tapas and pizza.

After eating, have a mooch around some of the shops too, which sell locally crafted clothes, gifts and jewellery.

The market also features the original Marks & Spencer Penny Bazaar stall.

Today it is the last surviving example of a Penny Bazaar, which used to be a fixed-price shop, and has a cherry-red exterior with golden signage from when it first opened in 1895.

One recent visitor of the market said: “If you love food then Grainger Market is a must do.

“We had Korean dumplings and buns, chicken wings, a Cuban sandwich (the Cubanos), a pizza slice, a sausage on a stick and shucked oysters from one of the fishmongers.

“There were other establishments that we did not get to and will certainly be visiting again.”

Another visitor added: “One of the best places in town by far.

“A really cool market, indoors, and in a classic 19th Century environment, a truly beautiful building.”

The market is open from 9am to 5:30pm, Monday to Saturday.

The Grade I listed market opened back in 1835 and was a part of the 19th century Neoclassical redevelopment of the city.

The market was designed by John Dobson and replaced some older markets that had been demolished.

A number of other destinations across the UK will be getting revamps this year too.

In London, an iconic Grade II listed building is set to close for a year as part of multimillion-pound redevelopment.

Plus, a much-mocked UK city is set to be huge this year according to National Geographic.

Morgan Stanley plans to launch ETFs tied to the price of Bitcoin and Solana, the first and sixth-largest crypto assets by market capitalisation respectively, according to a Form S-1 filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

This is the first time one of the ten largest US banks by total assets has formally moved to offer crypto ETFs.

An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a basket of assets that trades on a stock exchange like a share, giving investors easy exposure to an index, sector or commodity without owning it directly.

Many investors favour gaining crypto exposure via ETFs because they are low-cost and convenient. They can also offer greater liquidity while removing the regulatory and logistical complications of holding and safeguarding the underlying assets directly.

However, in the two years since the SEC approved the first US-listed Bitcoin ETF, it has largely been asset managers rather than banks that have launched these products.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said last December that its Bitcoin ETF suite had become the firm’s top revenue source, with allocations nearing $100 billion (€85bn) and generating more than $245 million (€210mn) in annual fees.

US banks, which have only acted as custodians of client funds until now, seem ready and eager to evolve as providers of crypto services in 2026.

Regulatory push under Trump

The current US administration has been notably favourable towards the crypto asset industry. President Donald Trump’s family launched a crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, just 50 days before the 2024 presidential election.

The company is managed by Trump’s two eldest sons, Donald Jr and Eric Trump, and alongside another firm, Trump Media and Technology Group, it has expanded the US President’s personal crypto ventures.

In parallel to these private interests, the current US administration has made a major regulatory push encouraging Wall Street to fully embrace crypto assets.

In July 2025, Trump signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) into law, creating a comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins. These are crypto assets designed to maintain a stable value by pegging their worth to a real-world asset, typically a fiat currency such as the US dollar.

That same month, the Crypto Legal Accountability, Registration and Transparency for Investors Act (CLARITY Act) was approved in the US Congress. It is now moving through the US Senate and is expected to pass on 15 January 2026.

The CLARITY Act is a landmark legislation intended to end the long-standing era of “regulation by enforcement” that has weighed on US crypto firms for years.

In September 2025, the SEC also revamped listing rules for new commodities ETFs, including those tied to crypto assets, clearing the way for firms to bring more financial products to market.

The shift helped spur Morgan Stanley to broaden client access to crypto investments in October 2025, and it has now filed with the SEC to offer crypto ETFs directly.

At the start of 2026, Bank of America also began allowing its wealth advisers to recommend crypto allocations in client portfolios, another sign of growing adoption of crypto assets among major US banks.

What this means for the EU

This development in the US banking sector and the crypto industry is not only significant for Wall Street, but also has direct implications for European investors.

US-listed ETFs are typically not available to European retail investors because they do not meet EU requirements under the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) regime.

Morgan Stanley has been expanding its footprint in the European ETF market since entering the space in 2023, and has been building the infrastructure needed to launch EU-compliant versions of these funds.

While Europe has yet to see a UCITS-compliant spot crypto ETF, major platforms such as Coinbase, one of the world’s largest crypto asset exchanges, are partnering with financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley, to enable crypto ETF trading in Europe this year.

Together, they aim to comply not only with UCITS, but also with the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules, which require firms to hold a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) licence.

Morgan Stanley’s leap indicates that for Wall Street, crypto is no longer a reputational risk to avoid, but a revenue stream they can no longer afford to ignore.

As of December 2025, new laws came into effect making Hainan a separate customs zone and consolidating a favorable regulatory environment in the southernmost province of China.

The move contrasts with the current global trend of protectionism, as many countries move to tighten trade rules and investment controls.

Hainan is now effectively the world’s largest free trade port by area. Encompassing over 35,000 square kilometers, it is roughly fifty times bigger than Singapore and even slightly bigger than Belgium.

China is attempting to offer a solution for the “growing uncertainties in the global economy” and trying to replicate the success of Singapore, with a free trade port the size of a European nation.

According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, the launch of “special customs operations” is not merely a policy tweak but a fundamental restructuring of how the island province interacts with international markets.

The unique framework, instituted by the Chinese Communist Party, could make Hainan the most business-friendly jurisdiction in the world.

This is not the first time the state-led economy, described as a socialist market economy, takes a page from the capitalist playbook to boost its global dominance.

Special economic zones (SEZs) have been successfully implemented in China since the late 1970s, as part of the country’s economic open-door policy. These SEZs allow Beijing to experiment with capitalist mechanisms, in limited areas, while maintaining broader state control over the economy.

In 2020, the CCP unveiled a comprehensive plan to shift Hainan from a mere special economic zone to a strategic hub designed to rival Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai.

Creating a completely separate trade and investment system for the province was the objective until the end of 2025. Going forward, the party projects that Hainan will reach “institutional maturity” by 2035 and achieve a “strong global influence” by the middle of the century.

First line open, second line controlled

The province comprises Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea, and now operates under a “two-line” customs system designed for greater openness while maintaining domestic security.

The first line marks the boundary between Hainan and the global economy, where most trade barriers have been removed. Under the new legislation, the majority of goods can enter the province freely, with a significantly expanded list of zero-tariff imports covering raw materials, equipment and consumer products.

The second line functions as a filter between Hainan and mainland China. There, standard customs rules apply, with goods subject to tariffs and controls intended to protect domestic markets.

However, the system creates a powerful incentive for manufacturers. Goods entering Hainan that achieve at least 30% added value within the province can enter mainland China duty-free, a policy designed to encourage additional production on the islands rather than using it solely as a transit hub.

For example, Australian beef can be imported into Hainan duty-free. Then, if the beef is sliced and packaged for China-destined hotpot products on the island province itself, it can enter mainland Chinese supermarkets with the same exemptions.

China’s strategic gateway

The scope of the CCP’s plans for Hainan extends well beyond customs arrangements.

The province applies a flat corporate tax rate of 15%, lower than those in Hong Kong (16.5%), Singapore (17%) and mainland China (25%).

Hainan is now also operating under a distinct regulatory framework in several other areas, which differs significantly from regulation on the mainland.

For instance, if a pharmaceutical product or medical device is approved by one of many regulatory agencies anywhere in the world, it can be used on the island province despite being banned on the mainland.

Similarly, companies registered in Hainan can apply for broader internet access, allowing them to bypass the so-called “Great Firewall of China”, a system of laws and technologies enforced by the CCP to control online activity nationwide.

Foreign companies can also open special bank accounts in Hainan, with capital flows exempt from mainland foreign-exchange controls, while foreign universities are permitted to establish campuses without a Chinese partner.

Visa-free entry to the province has also been expanded from 59 to 86 countries, now including the United States, Germany and Australia, as well as several countries in the Middle East and South America.

Visitors can stay for up to 30 days without a visa for business, medical treatment or tourism, as the authorities also promote the island province as a major travel destination.

Amid rising tensions in the global economy, Hainan serves as China’s “pressure valve” offering a low-tax, zero-tariff, high-access gateway to Asia-Pacific markets.

What started as a niche corner of the internet has evolved into a multibillion-dollar industry.

In 2025, prediction markets have become a substantial instrument for speculation and the forecasting of real-world events in both finance and media. Two major players in the sector, Polymarket and Kalshi, have amassed a combined volume of over $37 billion (€31.5bn) in wagers placed this year, according to the 2026 Digital Assets Outlook Report.

A prediction market is essentially a platform where people bet on what they think will happen, and the price of the bet becomes a forecast. For example, instead of asking people directly or through on-the-street interviews who they expect will win an election, you let people put money on their answer.

The market price tells you what outcome people collectively think is most likely, and the forecast updates in real time, which is why some believe prediction markets capture collective thinking better than polls.

The sheer amount of capital flowing through these exchanges has triggered a gold rush. This month, Kalshi secured a Series E funding round of $1 billion(€850mn) valuing the platform at $11 billion (€9.4bn).

Polymarket hit a milestone back in October when Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, announced a strategic investment of up to $2 billion (€1.7bn) and valued the platform at $8 billion (€6.8bn). Additionally, ICE became the distributor of Polymarket’s data to institutional investors globally.

The overall interest from financial institutions is undeniable. Terrence Duffy, the CEO of CME Group, the world’s leading derivatives exchange, described prediction markets as “a legitimate domain of speculation and information aggregation that our clients are demanding” during their third-quarter earnings call.

EU-based or homegrown prediction markets have yet to take off, and EU regulations have kept the existing ones largely offshore.

From beating polls to signing partnerships

As platforms, prediction markets function similarly to a financial exchange. Users buy and sell binary contracts, betting yes or no, on the outcomes of unknown future events such as election results, corporate earnings reports and sports scores.

Typically, these contracts pay out $1 if the event occurs and $0 if it does not. For example, if a contract is priced at $0.50 it implies that the collective belief of the participants is pricing a 50% probability of an event occurring.

The relevance of prediction markets was cemented after the 2024 US presidential election and the 2025 German snap election. In both cases, these platforms functioned as real-time scoreboards, consistently pricing outcomes and delivering predictions that were nearly as reliable or even more so than traditional polling.

This perceived accuracy has now forced legacy media to adapt.

Earlier this month, CNN set a global precedent by partnering with Kalshi to integrate live prediction market data into its broadcasts. A couple days later, CNBC made a similar announcement.

Before the recent partnerships, several media outlets were already starting to incorporate these predictions into their regular news stories, such as interest rate decisions and legislative votes, granting them similar editorial weight to conventional polling.

Hyper-commodification, insider trading and outcome manipulation

Critics of prediction markets argue that they have effectively gamified everyday human outcomes, drawing a dangerously thin line between serious forecasting and high-stakes gambling.

This gamification has accelerated a phenomenon some call “hyper-commodification”, which refers to the process of turning every aspect of social life into a commodity that becomes subject to market forces.

In its worst form, the phenomenon encourages gambling, creates new opportunities for insider trading and incentivises manipulating the outcomes of real-world events.

In early December, a Polymarket trader nicknamed “AlphaRaccoon” sparked controversy after winning 22 out of 23 bets related to Google’s 2025 Year in Search rankings.

The trader netted over $1 million (€850,000) in 24 hours, and was later accused of being a Google employee who used internal access to proprietary search data to find out the most searched terms ahead of the company’s announcement.

The incident raised concerns about the integrity of prediction markets, especially since the fact that users can be anonymous makes it more difficult for those engaging in insider trading to be immediately weeded out.

In late October, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who leads one of the largest crypto assets exchanges, turned the company’s third-quarter earnings call into ademonstration of the risks of outcome manipulation in prediction markets.

In the European Union, the crackdown on prediction markets began in late 2024 when the French National Gaming Authorityblocked Polymarket, ruling that its operation constituted unlicensed gambling.

The Romanian National Gambling Office (ONJN) blacklisted Polymarket in October after it hosted wagers on the Romanian 2025 presidential election held in May. In this case, the volume traded exceeded $600 million and the President of ONJN stated that “regardless of whether you bet in lei or crypto, if you bet money on a future result, under the conditions of a counterpart bet, we are talking about gambling that must be licensed.”

However, there are still many EU member states where prediction markets are accessible, such as Germany and Spain. The broader EU regulatory landscape remains fragmented, with no unified framework in place.

As we head into 2026, prediction markets also face the full implementation of the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, as most of these platforms make use of blockchain technology.

By July of next year, the grandfathering period ends for securing a Crypto-Asset Service Provider licence. According to the European Securities and Markets Authority, MiCA contains strict market abuse regimes that will apply to any prediction market using crypto assets.

The new reality is that every world event is being priced in real-time and the EU must decide if it will be a part of this era or opt for an outright ban.