Limitless Exchange Files for CFTC Approval After Record $1.66B Month

Limitless Markets US, LLC, a U.S. entity tied to worldwide blockchain-based prediction market Limitless Exchange, has utilized to change into a federally regulated derivatives change, placing one other crypto-native operator within the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s approval queue.

The CFTC posted the corporate’s designated contract market (DCM) utility to its business filings portal, itemizing Limitless Markets US, LLC as a pending DCM applicant with a May 1 submitting date. The public filing package features a Form DCM, governance reveals, a core rules chart, and a proposed rulebook.

The utility comes as Limitless’ present change has seen a pointy enhance in buying and selling exercise. Dune analytics present the platform at roughly $3.9 billion in whole notional quantity, together with about $1.66 billion in April alone. 

Limitless’ X bio describes the platform as providing “community-driven prediction markets on Crypto, Finance, Football, and Esports,” with greater than $3.5 billion traded. The firm has additionally promoted itself as the biggest prediction market on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 community. 

Limitless DCM utility alerts U.S. regulatory push

The public Form DCM identifies the applicant as Limitless Markets US, LLC, with deliberate enterprise names Limitless US and Limitless Markets. The type lists the principal workplace tackle as George Town, Grand Cayman, and notes that Limitless Markets US doesn’t at the moment preserve a bodily U.S. workplace as a result of workers work remotely.

If authorised, DCM standing would permit Limitless to function a CFTC-regulated change for futures, choices or occasion contracts. It is similar kind of federal change designation utilized by prediction market operators like Kalshi, Crypto.com Derivatives North America, ForecastEx, and Polymarket US. 

Limitless’ proposed rulebook is constructed round event-contract buying and selling. It defines a binary contract as one which usually settles with two potential outcomes, often Yes or No, whereas additionally permitting scalar contracts whose payout will depend on the diploma to which an end result happens. 

The firm’s core rules chart says Limitless would offer “an environment friendly, aggressive, honest and clear market” and preserve guidelines designed to “stop abusive and fraudulent buying and selling practices.” It additionally says the change would monitor buying and selling in actual time, utilizing third-party regulatory service suppliers and inside dashboards to detect misconduct like spoofing, layering, wash buying and selling and different probably manipulative exercise. 

The submitting additionally emphasizes compliance controls round entry and clearing. Limitless says contracts submitted for clearing could be cleared by a CFTC-registered derivatives clearing group (DCO), whereas the rulebook requires dealer positions to be absolutely money collateralized so members can’t take positions with publicity better than deposited funds. The rulebook additionally prohibits buying and selling by folks with materials nonpublic data a few contract’s underlying, or individuals who can affect the occasion end result. 

Limitless has grown shortly on Base

Limitless’ U.S. utility comes as its existing blockchain-based exchange has reported a pointy enhance in exercise on Base. Dune analytics present Limitless at roughly $3.9 billion in whole notional buying and selling, with month-to-month quantity rising quickly over time. From September 2025 ($109M) to April 2026 ($1.66B), Limitless grew roughly 15x over that 7-month stretch. April 2026 marked a transparent breakout, hitting $1.66B (almost 3x March) and surpassing all prior months mixed. The similar dashboard reveals about $348.2 million in May quantity as of May 5. 

Separate Dune dashboards monitoring prediction-market notional quantity throughout main platforms listed Limitless at about $3.97 billion in cumulative notional quantity, behind Polymarket’s international platform, Kalshi and Opinion, however forward of Predict, Crypto.com and Polymarket’s U.S. platform. The dashboards present Limitless with 5.6% of whole tracked prediction-market notional quantity in April, behind Kalshi (49.7%) and Polymarket’s worldwide change (30.2%), however forward of predict.enjoyable, Polymarket’s U.S. platform, Opinion, Crypto.com and different tracked venues.

Limitless CEO factors to finance as fastest-growing use case

CJ Hetherington, New York-based co-founder and CEO of Limitless Labs, highlighted the expansion in a LinkedIn publish Tuesday, touting Limitless reaching $3.9 billion in whole buying and selling and noting that the platform has seen 300% month-over-month development. 

In the publish, Hetherington pushed again on the concept that prediction markets are outlined primarily by sports activities, politics or tradition. He mentioned finance is the “fastest-growing use case” and pointed to Limitless’ 15-minute crypto markets and one-hour commodities markets as examples of how the platform is concentrating on short-term monetary buying and selling. 

“People constantly type their very own views in the marketplace,” Hetherington wrote. “On Limitless, they will earn from their conviction by predicting an asset’s course each quarter-hour.”

Limitless’ present change presents a large mixture of prediction markets throughout crypto, finance, sports activities, esports and politics. Its sports activities markets embody a variety of worldwide soccer contracts (together with for the World Cup), plus basketball, hockey and Formula 1, whereas its esports part covers aggressive gaming outcomes. The politics class consists of markets tied to elections, authorities actions and public-policy outcomes. The platform additionally has China- and Korea-specific sections that embody regionally targeted markets throughout areas like elections, finance and different regional occasions.

Venture-backed platform has raised at the very least $17 million

Limitless has raised at the very least $17 million throughout disclosed rounds since 2024.

Limitless Labs announced a $3 million pre-seed spherical in September 2024 led by 1confirmation, with Paper Ventures, Collider and Public Works additionally collaborating. That announcement described Limitless Labs because the R&D community behind Limitless and mentioned the corporate was based in December 2023 by Hetherington, Roman Mogylnyi, Dima Horshkov and Rev Miller.

In July 2025, Limitless announced a $4 million strategic spherical, bringing whole funding to $7 million. The investor checklist included Coinbase Ventures and 1confirmation, in addition to Maelstrom, Collider, Node Capital, Paper Ventures, Public Works, Punk DAO and WAGMI Ventures. The firm mentioned on the time that it had seen demand for short-term value markets on belongings like bitcoin, attracting greater than $250 million in quantity quickly after launch.

Limitless later announced a $10 million seed spherical in October 2025 led by 1confirmation, with participation from different returning traders, like Collider and Coinbase Ventures. The firm mentioned then that it had surpassed $500 million in whole buying and selling quantity, cementing what it described as its place as the biggest prediction market on Base.

What to look at

The submitting provides Limitless to a rising checklist of corporations in search of CFTC-regulated change standing as prediction markets push additional into the U.S. monetary system. But in contrast to firms centered primarily on sports activities or politics, Limitless is coming from a crypto-native, blockchain-based platform that has already scaled significant quantity on Base.

The key unanswered query is what that mannequin would seem like contained in the U.S. regulatory framework. Limitless’ public rulebook outlines binary occasion contracts, clearing, collateralization, surveillance and member entry guidelines, however a lot of the appliance stays confidential. 

DeFi Rate reached out to Hetherington for touch upon Limitless’ U.S. technique. This story might be up to date together with his responses.

The public submitting is a crucial sign, however not a full blueprint. Limitless is in search of a path into the CFTC-regulated change system after constructing one of the energetic occasion contract buying and selling venues on Base and one of many extra aggressive platforms, by way of quantity attracted, worldwide. 

But the submitting doesn’t say whether or not Limitless would search to convey its present blockchain-based change right into a U.S.-regulated construction or function a separate U.S. venue with distinct customers and liquidity, the method Polymarket used after buying a CFTC-licensed change and clearinghouse.

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