#预测市场 Seeing Kalshi ultimately shelve plans to launch university athlete transfer contracts, the first thought that came to mind was—this is a significant milestone in the development history of prediction markets.

Looking back at the trajectory over the years, every time prediction markets attempt to break boundaries and expand coverage, they encounter the same issues: regulatory bottom lines and societal backlash. Remember the controversies surrounding political prediction markets a few years ago? Going further back, the history of sports betting follows a similar pattern—markets want to innovate, but stakeholders in reality raise collective voices.

Kalshi’s counterattack this time was very direct, pinpointing three critical pain points: harassment pressure on student athletes, risks to match integrity, and uncertainties in recruitment processes. These are not baseless moral condemnations but are supported by real cases. Think about it— a 19-year-old college basketball player suddenly finds their transfer decision turned into a transaction, with thousands of betting contracts around them flowing on the exchange—how much pressure does that create?

Most interestingly, Kalshi’s submission to the CFTC was very well written, but ultimately they compromised. What does this indicate? It shows that in this industry, just getting regulatory approval isn’t enough; societal consensus is also a hard constraint. How many products that seemed "compliant" historically have ultimately failed due to public opinion pressure?

The future of prediction markets isn’t about endlessly expanding betting scopes but about finding application scenarios that have clear value discovery functions and can gain broad recognition. This incident serves as a mirror.