ForumEX Seeks CFTC Approval for Perpetual-Style ‘Cultural Attention’ Futures

ForumEX, the change arm of Y Combinator-backed Forum Markets Group, has joined the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s checklist of pending designated contract market (DCM) candidates with an uncommon proposition: turning what Forum calls “cultural consideration” right into a federally regulated futures market.

Forum already operates a beta platform utilizing simulated funds the place customers can take lengthy or brief positions in contracts tied to a proprietary Attention Index measuring on-line curiosity in topics starting from Kanye West, Donald Trump and Grand Theft Auto VI to SpaceX, Polymarket and Kalshi. The index combines indicators from Google Trends, YouTube, Reddit and X to trace modifications in on-line consideration over time.

The product appears to be like extra like a perpetual-style futures market than a standard prediction market contract. There isn’t any Yes/No query or occasion that finally resolves the commerce. Instead, merchants revenue or lose because the contract worth rises or falls, whereas funding funds assist maintain that worth aligned with the underlying consideration index. Forum’s beta contracts technically expire after 5 years, whereas its proposed regulated change would use totally collateralized contracts that settle every day and routinely roll into the subsequent buying and selling day.

Forum has been signaling its regulatory ambitions since launching earlier this yr, saying six months in the past that it was working with the CFTC to deliver real-money buying and selling to the U.S. The newly public ForumEX application, dated Aug. 21, supplies an in depth take a look at how the startup plans to transform these simulated “cultural consideration” futures right into a federally regulated market.

Forum has been constructing towards a regulated launch

Forum launched earlier this yr as a part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2026 cohort, based by Owen Botkin and Joseph Thomas. Botkin beforehand traded lengthy/brief equities at Balyasny Asset Management, whereas Thomas labored in software program roles at GEICO and NASA, based on Y Combinator.

The beta initially gave customers $1,000 in simulated funds. Forum later ran weekly buying and selling competitions during which the highest three merchants shared a $500 money prize pool, based on competitors rules.

The regulatory buildout has change into extra seen in latest months. Forum Markets Group fashioned ForumEX because the change entity and recently hired former CFTC official Maggie Sklar as chief compliance officer. Sklar beforehand labored within the company’s Division of Market Oversight and served as senior counsel to former CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo.

ForumEX’s DCM software additionally says the change has engaged the National Futures Association to offer regulatory companies together with audit-trail assessment and trade-practice surveillance. Forum would retain accountability for imposing its personal guidelines and disciplinary choices.

ForumEX would create steady publicity via daily-settled futures

ForumEX is proposing a non-intermediated, totally collateralized change, which means accredited members might commerce instantly with out going via a futures fee service provider or introducing dealer. The application says each people and entities might change into members, with the change checking that ample funds can be found earlier than an order is matched.

The change would clear trades via an affiliated entity, Forum Clearing LLC, which the proposed rulebook identifies because the derivatives clearing group (DCO) for ForumEX contracts. A separate DCO software for Forum Clearing has not but appeared within the CFTC’s public portal.

Orders would commerce via an nameless central restrict order e-book utilizing price-time precedence, much like the construction utilized by many digital futures and prediction market exchanges. ForumEX doesn’t plan to supply block trades or different off-exchange execution strategies, based on the submitting.

The rulebook says contracts would usually start buying and selling at 5 p.m. ET every day, with buying and selling paused between 3 a.m. and eight a.m. Open positions would settle in opposition to the worth of the underlying Attention Index every buying and selling day, with positive factors and losses credited to or debited from customers’ accounts.

Eligible positions might then routinely roll into the subsequent day’s contract on the earlier settlement worth, permitting merchants to take care of steady publicity. That makes the regulated product perpetual-like in apply, regardless that ForumEX would technically use a sequence of daily-settled futures slightly than a single contract with no expiration.

Forum pitches consideration as a brand new asset class

Forum’s broader pitch is that on-line consideration already has financial worth and may be handled as a tradable asset in its personal proper. The firm says manufacturers, media corporations and traders are uncovered to what it calls “cultural threat,” the likelihood {that a} marketing campaign, product, artist or competitor out of the blue positive factors or loses relevance.

An listed copy of Forum product documentation that’s not dwell provides examples of companies utilizing consideration futures to hedge advertising and marketing campaigns that underperform or to offset the affect of a rival going viral. Traders, in the meantime, might use the identical contracts merely to take a position on which artists, corporations or traits are about to change into roughly outstanding.

Forum’s index methodology is designed to place a quantity on that spotlight. Its normal Attention Index at present weights Google Trends at 30%, YouTube at 28%, Reddit at 21% and X at 21%, with information up to date each half-hour and smoothed to scale back short-lived spikes. Those weightings are additionally displayed on particular person markets in Forum’s present beta.

Forum has described the idea as creating a brand new asset class round consideration. In its Y Combinator launch, the founders put it extra merely: “We flip virality into tradable markets.”

Attention markets are already spreading

Forum just isn’t alone in attempting to show on-line relevance into one thing merchants can worth. Polymarket partnered with Kaito AI earlier this year to launch “consideration markets” tied to measures equivalent to mindshare and sentiment, though these merchandise stay standard prediction contracts that finally resolve Yes or No. 

Noise, a Paradigm–backed startup, is utilizing a mannequin a lot nearer to Forum’s. Its platform lets customers take lengthy or brief positions in contracts tied to the relevance of traits, manufacturers and concepts, with costs knowledgeable by each social information and buying and selling exercise. Noise says its markets are steady slightly than binary, with no single decision occasion. 

Forum has not introduced a timetable for launching real-money buying and selling. For now, its current platform continues to function utilizing simulated funds whereas the corporate pursues federal change approval.

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