A $5 million donation, then the CFTC intervened in court for the donor

Nevada gaming regulators sent cease-and-desist letters in May 2025 to prediction-market platforms including Crypto.com, saying their sports event contracts were unlicensed sports betting. Crypto.com sued. On October 14, 2025, Judge Andrew Gordon denied a preliminary injunction, reasoning that a team's victory is an outcome rather than an event, and that under the company's reading nearly all sports wagering would fall within federal jurisdiction: had Congress intended such a change, he wrote, it surely would have said so. Crypto.com suspended its Nevada sports contracts and appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

Michael Selig became CFTC chairman on December 18, 2025. On January 20, 2026 he published an op-ed on prediction markets criticizing the prior administration's approach to digital innovation. On January 23, Crypto.com's parent company, Foris Dax, gave $5 million to MAGA Inc. On January 29 Selig said he had directed CFTC staff to reassess the commission's participation in matters pending before the federal courts. On February 5 the agency asked the Ninth Circuit for leave to file an out-of-time amicus brief, which both parties supported. On February 16 Selig published a second op-ed, in the Wall Street Journal, arguing that states were encroaching on prediction markets. On February 17 the CFTC filed the brief, arguing that event contracts are swaps within its exclusive jurisdiction and that state gambling laws are preempted. Selig announced it himself on social media. The donation became public on February 20, in a Friday-night FEC filing.

The countervailing facts are substantial. The legal question is genuinely contested: a former CFTC general counsel called the agency's no-limiting-principle argument credible, while Better Markets filed against it and called the position baseless. Selig had staked out his view publicly on January 20, three days before the donation, and had made prediction markets a stated priority from his first weeks in office. The agency files amicus briefs rarely, only about eight since 2000, which is what made the intervention notable; a former general counsel said an agency intervention of this kind had never happened before. No prosecutor has alleged and no court has found an exchange. What is documented is the sequence, the size of the donor's cumulative giving, and that the administration had earlier dropped an SEC investigation into the same company without enforcement action. The family's own crypto venture is documented at CRY-03 and a comparable CFTC settlement at CRY-18.

Documented; the donation appears in MAGA Inc.'s FEC filing and the amicus brief is a public court filing. No quid pro quo has been alleged by any prosecutor or found by any court

North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc. d/b/a Crypto.com Derivatives North America v. Nevada, No. 25-7187 (9th Cir.). The district court denied Crypto.com a preliminary injunction on October 14, 2025; the CFTC filed its amicus brief February 17, 2026; argument was set for April 2026. The underlying question, whether sports event contracts are swaps within the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction, is genuinely unsettled

$5 million from Foris Dax, Inc. on Jan. 23, 2026. Crypto.com has given at least $35 million to MAGA Inc. since 2025, including $10 million in February 2025. The prediction-markets sector at issue represents billions in prospective revenue

Nevada cease-and-desist letters 2025-05; injunction denied 2025-10-14; Selig sworn in 2025-12-18; Selig op-ed 2026-01-20; donation 2026-01-23; Selig announces reassessment 2026-01-29; motion for leave 2026-02-05; amicus filed 2026-02-17; donation disclosed 2026-02-20