Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
GM!
Today’s top news:
- Crypto majors mixed, ETH and SOL lead; BTC back to $113k
- BNB hits fresh ATH at $880 overnight before retracing
- Kanye tweets out YZY coin, briefly runs to $3B before falling
- CME announces partnership with Fanduel to launch events contracts
- Heaven notches first $1M revenue day, burns another $1M of its LIGHT token
🎲 CME + FanDuel Bring Event Contracts to the Masses
Wall Street is meeting Main Street in the betting arena.
And the prediction market boom is about to begin…
📌 What Happened
The CME Group and FanDuel are teaming up to launch a new event contracts platform, making it easier for everyday users to bet on markets like the S&P 500, oil, gold, and even crypto.
The two will create a joint venture that will offer fully funded, event-based contracts as a part of the initiative.
These simple yes/no markets will let FanDuel’s millions of customers trade on major benchmarks and economic indicators for as little as $1.
Expected to go live later this year (pending CFTC review), the platform will cover:
- Indices: S&P 500, Nasdaq-100
- Commodities: oil, gas, gold
- Crypto: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more
- Macro data: GDP, CPI, and other key releases
The contracts will run through a new non-clearing futures commission merchant (FCM) jointly operated by CME and FanDuel, and listed on CME’s regulated exchanges.
🗣️ What They’re Saying
- Terry Duffy, CME Group CEO: “Together, our event-based products will appeal to the growing public interest in markets, and we will provide education to attract a new generation of potential traders not active in derivatives today.”
- Amy Howe, FanDuel CEO: “Partnering with CME Group will unlock our ability to bring even more new and engaging products to FanDuel’s fast-growing customer base… combining innovation with best-in-class regulatory compliance and consumer protections.”
CME & FanDuel partnering on event contracts…
I’m serious.
Basically you can wager as little as $1 on S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, oil, gas, gold, crypto, & even GDP and CPI.
Yes, you’ll be able to place these bets via FanDuel.
Full gamification of markets.
What a time to be alive. pic.twitter.com/BMUgjgqWw4
— Nate Geraci (@NateGeraci) August 20, 2025
🧠 Why It Matters
This is a huge moment for prediction markets and retail access:
- Mainstream on-ramp: Millions of FanDuel bettors will soon have a direct line into regulated financial products, essentially turning prediction rading into a mass-market consumer activity
- Legitimacy & compliance: With CME as the partner, these contracts have instant credibility and regulatory cover, something platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have struggled with
- Bridging speculation & investing: By blending sports betting UX with financial markets, CME and FanDuel are creating a product that sits squarely between gambling and trading
- Crypto crossover: Including Bitcoin and Ethereum in the initial product set cements crypto’s role as a tradable benchmark alongside equities, commodities, and macro data
Assuming this is approved, this could be the biggest step yet toward mass adoption of event-based markets in the U.S. seen to date.
There were questions (and rightfully so) if prediction markets would make it post-2024 election.
Volumes boomed into the most hotly debated election ever, but then (to the surprise of many), volumes sustained.
Prediction markets have sustained well post-election (data from https://dune.com/fergmolina/polymarket-markets-data)[/caption]
Thanks to new styles of pop culture markets, leaning more into news and geopolitics and of course sports betting markets, prediction markets have kept volumes at ~50%+ levels of peak 2024.
That’s a huge win.
And the more progress made in 2025-2026 will lead for an even bigger 2028 election cycle.
Let the prediction market boom begin…
🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes
A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
- Crypto majors were mostly green on the day; BTC even at $113,300, ETH +3% at $4,285, XRP +1% at $2.90, SOL +3% at $184
- OKB (+60%), MORPHO (+12%) and LINK (+6%) led top movers
- BNB briefly broke to a new ATH of $880 last night
- OKB popped another 60% to $206 after its massive token burn
- A judge unfroze $57.6M in funds tied to the Libra meme coin case (tied to Argentina President Javier Milei) after signs of compliance
- Xapo sees a $200B Bitcoin inflow coming from the wealth transfer from boomers to their children over the coming decade
- Ark Invest backed Bullish and Robinhood, with Cathie Wood’s firm buying $21.2M of Bullish and $16.2M of Robinhood shares in their market debuts
- The Winklevoss twins funded a pro-Trump crypto PAC to the tune of $21M (188 BTC as it looks to launch the Digital Freedom Fund aimed at blocking CBDCs and supporting crypto-friendly policy
- The New York lawmaker’s push for 0.2% crypto tax will also include stablecoin transfers
In Corporate Treasuries
- Empery Digital holds $450M in BTC but its market cap sits at just $340M, trading well below mNAV
- Windtree Therapeutics, a BNB treasury company, has been removed from Nasdaq for listing compliance issues
In Memes
- Memecoin leaders are red on the day; DOGE -3%, Shiba -3%, PEPE -4%, PENGU -8%, BONK -4%, TRUMP -3%, SPX -3%, and FARTCOIN -4%
- Kanye West tweeted out a memecoin YZY which briefly ran to $3B FDV before falling back to $1B
- Heaven reached $1M in daily revenue on Wednesday (75% of Pump’s revenue) while also unlocking a new “golden twap” to account for some missed revenue that hadn’t gone to LIGHT buybacks
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:
🤖 AI x Crypto
Section dedicated to headlines in the AI sector of crypto:
- Overall market cap down 2% to $12.2B, leaders were mixed
- FARTCOIN (+1%), VIRTUAL (+1%), TIBBIR (-3%), ai16z (-1%) & VVV (-17%)
- fxn (+24%), Simmi (+22%) and IRIS (+15%) led top movers
🚚 What is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
- ETH NFT leaders were mostly green; Punks -2% at 46.5 ETH, Pudgy +1% at 12.6, BAYC +2% at 11.6 ETH
- Moonbirds (+15%) and Mooncats (+17%) were notable top movers
- Bitcoin NFTs were mostly red or even; Bitcoin Puppets +6%
- Abstract NFTs were mixed, led by BUUMEE (+20%)
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