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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 reverse and flip red; BTC -1% at $107,500 BTC ETF inflows reach $477M, not enough to counter selling DraftKings acquires Railbird, plans to launch DraftKings Predictions app Polymarket and Kalshi reach licensing agreement with the NHL Jupiter launches its own prediction market powered by Kalshi 💰 DraftKings Bets Big on Prediction Markets DraftKings just made its most aggressive move yet outside of sports betting. And it wasn’t into casino, poker, or fantasy. It was into prediction markets. 📌 What Happened DraftKings announced it is acquiring Railbird Technologies, a CFTC-regulated prediction market exchange, and will use it to launch a standalone events trading app called DraftKings Predictions. Railbird comes with what Kalshi and others fought hard for - federal approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to let people trade real-money contracts on real-world outcomes. Now DraftKing’s 6M monthly users will get access to prediction markets (and its $15B company has a shiny new expansion path). DraftKings says the new app will launch “in the coming months” and initially cover non-sports markets - things like finance, pop culture, elections, entertainment, and news. Though sports are very likely to come later (especially in states where DraftKings is currently banned). 🗣️ What Are They Saying “We are excited about the additional opportunity that prediction markets could represent for our business. We believe that Railbird’s team and platform—combined with DraftKings’ scale, trusted brand, and proven expertise in mobile-first products—positions us to win in this incremental space.” - DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said in a statement to CNBC “DraftKings acquires prediction market firm Railbird As I shared last week prediction markets are the future for sports wagering Less than a week later you see $DKNG getting involved.” - Rippe, on X “$DKNG is acquiring CFTC-licensed predictions platform Railbird to launch “DraftKings Predictions” a marketplace for trading outcomes in finance, culture & entertainment. It’s a move to tap non-sports states like California & Texas in the coming months.” - Shay Boloor on X 🧠 Why It Matters If prediction markets needed any more validation, they got it here from DraftKings. They have simply become too big to ignore and are now fully crossing over into mainstream betting. There’s also a new battle brewing between two worlds: CFTC-regulated prediction markets like Kalshi and now DraftKings Predictions Crypto-native markets like Polymarket, Myriad, Zeitgeist, and Azuro DraftKings brings three big advantages: User distribution - 6M+ active bettors. Regulatory foundation - Railbird’s CFTC license gives instant legitimacy. Trust and UX - familiarity with real-money markets at scale. They will be a force to be reckoned with in this space. A lot depends on timing here. Someone who is used to betting elections on Polymarket probably won’t switch to DraftKings. But - if DraftKings beats Polymarket to the US market with its new DraftKings Predictions app, it could absolutely steal that average user who knows what prediction markets are / Polymarket is, but doesn’t want to hassle with VPNs. And if DK sports prediction markets have the same liquidity that Kalshi has shown over the past few months, then they could steal significant market share in sports. The bull case is, the entrance of DraftKings into the prediction market sector grows the overall pie and drives weekly volumes even further up and to the right. The bear case - the sector is zero-sum for the near future and any DK share is taken from an existing leader. My gut is, the bull case will prevail for the near future. Time will tell… 🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye: Crypto majors are red again after a major Tuesday reversal; BTC -1% at $107,800, ETH -2% at $3,830, BNB -1% at $1,072, SOL even at $185 ENA (+5%), APT (+5%) and 2Z (+5%) led top movers Bitcoin and ETH briefly rose on Wednesday while gold fell from record highs, with Gold/BTC falling a whopping 7% intraday before reversing Galaxy reported a $505M profit with $11.5B in assets amid stronger trading and inflows (GLXY +8%) BlackRock shared that users have traded $3B of Bitcoin in-kind for ETF shares since July’s rule change The Fed is considering “skinny” master accounts for crypto banks on a faster timeline, meaning crypto banks would get faster access to Fed services Protocols built on Walrus stayed online during the AWS failures thanks to its decentralizing data across nodes globally preventing a single point of failure Solana Saga phones lost security updates and official support after Seeker rollout In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs The Bitcoin ETFs saw $477.2M in net inflows on Tuesday, with ETH seeing $141.7M in inflows Citi gave Saylor’s Strategy a “Buy” rating with price target of $485 but warned on key risks Hong Kong cleared the ChinaAMC Solana ETF for trading starting Oct 27, the first spot SOL ETF to get approved FalconX agreed to acquire ETF provider 21Shares, a key player in the European ETP market In Memes Memecoin leaders are mostly red along with majors; DOGE -1%, Shiba -1%, PEPE -2%, PENGU -2%, BONK -1%, TRUMP -1%, SPX -1%, and FARTCOIN -3% BSC memes continue to lead volume, taking 14 of the top 16 spots on Dexscreener EVAA +80% to $56M and XPIN _37% to $83M were top movers; SHARKS ran 100x to $10M Streamer Sam Pepper was banned from Pump.fun and Kick after a firework stunt injury 💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day: DraftKings acquired Railbird and confirmed plans to launch ‘DraftKings Predictions’ as a mobile app leaning into prediction markets Limitless released its tokenomics for its upcoming LMTS TGE, launching on Base with 1B supply, with plans for token buybacks via trading revenue The NHL partnered with Kalshi and Polymarket for official use of its trademark Polymarket launched a mini app within the World App Jupiter introduced its first prediction market now live in beta, powered by Kalshi liquidity pools 🚚 What is happening in NFTs? Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
