Donald Trump Jr. joins Kalshi as a strategic advisor

President-elect Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has joined prediction market platform Kalshi as a strategic advisor.

The move highlights Trump Jr.’s growing interest in technology and financial innovation. Founded in 2018, Kalshi allows users to bet on real-world events, including politics, weather and current events. The platform rose to prominence after US courts approved election betting last year.

Kalshi won court approval to list forecast contracts for U.S. Congressional control after a legal battle with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. A federal appeals court overturned the CFTC’s previous denial, allowing the regulated enterprise to offer these event markets.

Don Jr.’s bold vision and deep expertise align perfectly with our mission to reshape how America interacts with information.

His guidance will help accelerate our expansion and bring prediction markets into the mainstream.

— Kalshi (@Kalshi) January 13, 2025

Trump Jr. announced his decision to join Kalshi in a post on social media platform X, citing the platform’s accurate predictions during the 2024 presidential election. He noted that Kalshi provided clarity about the Republican victory hours before traditional media outlets reported it.

“I immediately knew I had to contribute to their mission,” Trump Jr. wrote, praising Kalshi’s approach to offering insight through prediction markets.

Prediction markets like Kalshi allow users to bet on the outcomes of specific events. For example, users can bet on the number of executive orders a president will sign or the likelihood of a Senate confirmation vote.

Another notable prediction market on mainstream events is Polymarket. Both Kalshi and Polymarket use real-time data and audience sentiment to generate probabilities, often providing faster insights than traditional surveys or news sources.

Kalshi and crypto

Kalshi has launched cryptocurrency deposits using the stablecoin USDC (USDC) and integrated crypto into its services. In contrast, Polymarket is a decentralized prediction market on the blockchain that uses cryptocurrencies for transactions, covering a variety of topics such as politics and global events. Gained traction during 2024 US elections but faced regulatory challenges in the US

Both platforms underscore the growing intersection of prediction markets and cryptocurrency within decentralized finance. While Kalshi adheres to regulatory rules, Polymarket offers different approaches to event-driven speculation in the crypto space by leveraging the decentralized features of blockchain.