TLDR
- The CFTC issued a staff advisory on Sept. 22 warning that “mention” contracts may be presumed readily susceptible to manipulation.
- Mention markets settle on what a named person says, attends or does, such as specific words used in a speech.
- A former White House teleprompter operator was ordered to return $107,539 and pay a $65,000 penalty for trading on Trump speech contracts.
- Former Rep. George Santos paid about $35,000 after trading contracts tied to his own State of the Union attendance.
- Kalshi still lists some Trump speech markets, while a $5 billion Ether market on the platform has drawn scrutiny.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has warned regulated prediction markets about contracts tied to what a person says or does. The agency said these “mention markets” carry a higher risk of manipulation.
The CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight issued the staff advisory on Sept. 22. It covers contracts based on specific words, event attendance, public appearances and interactions between people.
The advisory is informational and creates no new legal obligations. However, exchanges must still follow the Commodity Exchange Act, which requires them to list only contracts that are not readily susceptible to manipulation.
Why the CFTC Sees Mention Markets as Risky
“These contract types present a heightened risk of manipulation because their settlement turns on the discrete conduct of a person that may be neither independently generated nor externally verifiable,” the regulator said.
CFTC staff said a person who controls an outcome could trigger it, prevent it or know the result early. For example, a podcast host could say a word tied to a contract payout.
For that reason, the agency said it may view mention markets as “presumptively readily susceptible to manipulation.” This does not mean every such contract is banned.
Exchanges can rebut that view in limited cases. According to CNBC, the CFTC letter lists four factors: oversight to detect manipulation, independent verification, outside pressure on the subject and the subject’s outside obligations.
CFTC Chair Mike Selig welcomed the guidance in a post on X. He wrote that “regulatory clarity drives sound markets.”
Recent Cases Involving Insider Trading
The advisory follows two CFTC enforcement cases. On Aug. 28, the agency ordered former White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez to disgorge $107,539 and pay a $65,000 civil penalty.
Perez had early access to President Donald Trump’s speeches between December 2025 and February 2026. He used that information to trade presidential mention contracts and received a three-year trading ban.
In July, the CFTC found that former Rep. George Santos traded contracts on whether he would attend the 2026 State of the Union. He made public statements about his plans while trading.
Santos paid $17,569.98 in disgorgement and a $17,500 civil penalty, and he accepted a three-year trading ban. Kalshi later banned him for life.
The guidance is not an industrywide ban. As of Sept. 23, Kalshi still listed markets tied to what Trump would say at United Nations meetings, including terms such as AI, NATO and ceasefire.
Kalshi pulled sports mention contracts in August after the CFTC opened a review. Political and corporate versions stayed available.
On Sept. 22, Kalshi Klear also asked for approval of a margin framework for some event contracts. Mention and culture markets were left out of that proposal.
Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that nearly one million trades worth more than $5 billion were made in August in one Kalshi market tied to the price of Ether. More than a third came in nearly identical amounts of about $5,500.
Kalshi has rejected claims that the trades were wash trading. The activity has drawn attention from federal regulators and traders, according to the Journal.
Future product filings under the CFTC’s Part 40 rules are expected to include detailed manipulation analysis. The Commission has not yet finalized a separate June proposal covering event contracts.
