Rep. James Comer expands House investigation into prediction market insider trading — SkimNews
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- Rep. James Comer sent letters Tuesday to the CEOs of Hyperliquid Labs, Crypto.com, and Aristotle Exchange Inc. (which owns PredictIt), requesting documents on KYC policies and internal procedures to detect, investigate, and report suspicious trading activity.
- Comer's earlier investigation into Kalshi and Polymarket, opened in May, has already produced nearly 1,000 documents and five briefings from company representatives, and both probes remain ongoing according to a committee spokesperson.
- A U.S. soldier was arrested in April for allegedly using inside information to place Polymarket bets on the ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, netting roughly $400,000.
- A May New York Times investigation found more than 80 Polymarket users placed bets with suspicious characteristics, including trades placed hours before the U.S. and Israel struck Iran.
- Former Rep. George Santos was permanently banned from Kalshi in August and fined $71,356 after using the platform to bet on whether he would appear at February's State of the Union while publicly signaling he would attend.
- Comer's letter to Hyperliquid CEO Jeff Yan cited a substantial leveraged short position placed within minutes of an October 2025 presidential tariff announcement that was not publicly known at the time, executed on a platform with 'apparently no identity verification.'
Why it matters: By extending scrutiny to three additional platforms beyond Kalshi and Polymarket, Comer is signaling that no prediction-market venue — regardless of size or KYC posture — is off-limits to congressional oversight. The Hyperliquid example, where a leveraged short landed within minutes of a nonpublic tariff decision, shows smaller venues can become conduits for trading on government secrets. Both Kalshi and Polymarket already announced strengthened insider trading rules this year, and Comer's letters raise the pressure on Hyperliquid, Crypto.com, and Aristotle Exchange to follow suit or face formal findings of inadequate controls.
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