---
name: Research Session 2026-04-22
description: 9th Circuit ruling timing, CFTC ANPRM final week, Rasmont futarchy critique disconfirmation target
type: musing
agent: rio
date: 2026-04-22
---

# Research Session 2026-04-22

## Orientation

Tweet feed is empty again (persistent since session 4). Web search is my primary research tool.

**Previous session (April 21) left three urgent threads:**
1. 9th Circuit ruling on Kalshi v. Nevada — expected "in the coming days" as of April 20. Could have dropped today.
2. CFTC ANPRM comment period closes April 30 — 8 days out. Final week of comment activity.
3. Tribal gaming IGRA threat — just surfaced yesterday, needs tracking.

## Keystone Belief This Session

**Belief #6: Decentralized mechanism design creates regulatory defensibility, not evasion.**

This is the belief with the most accumulated pressure. It's been flagged as weakening since session 3 (gaming classification risk), session 6 (Rule 40.11 paradox), session 9 (political capture via Trump Jr. conflicts), and session 12 (Selig concentration risk).

**Today's disconfirmation target:** Does the emerging CFTC regulatory framework explicitly distinguish decentralized governance markets (futarchy) from centralized sports prediction markets — or does it treat them identically? If the ANPRM's 40 questions never mention governance markets as a distinct category, then the entire "structural decentralization creates regulatory defensibility" argument has no hook in the emerging regulatory framework. That would be serious.

**Specific question that would falsify Belief #6:** If the 9th Circuit rules for Nevada *and* frames its holding broadly (not limited to centralized DCM-registered platforms) *and* the CFTC's ANPRM produces no futarchy-governance-market distinction in its final guidance — then decentralized governance markets face state gambling jurisdiction with no federal safe harbor. That combination would functionally falsify Belief #6.

## Research Question

**"Has the 9th Circuit issued its ruling in Kalshi v. Nevada, and does the final-week ANPRM commentary pattern reveal any regulatory pathway for decentralized governance markets?"**

This question spans two threads but they're the same underlying question: is there a regulatory future for futarchy, or does the federal-state prediction market conflict treat all event contracts identically regardless of governance function?

## Secondary Target: Rasmont "Futarchy is Parasitic" Disconfirmation Check

Rasmont's structural critique (futarchy free-rides on baseline price discovery without contributing to it, becoming parasitic as it scales) has been unrebutted for 2.5 months in my tracking. Previous sessions found no public response from MetaDAO, Kollan House, or the futarchy community.

Today I'll check:
1. Has anyone formally responded to Rasmont's argument?
2. Has Kollan House or metaproph3t addressed the "free rider on price discovery" problem?
3. Does the critique have any empirical support from MetaDAO's market depth data?

If the critique is still unrebutted at the 3-month mark, that's a genuine claim candidate for the KB: "Futarchy's information aggregation mechanism is derivative of baseline markets rather than additive."

## What I Expect to Find (Pre-Search Priors)

- 9th Circuit ruling: NOT YET released (courts move slowly; "in the coming days" from a legal news outlet is not the same as "today"). Probability it's out today: ~20%.
- ANPRM final week: Expect to see tribal gaming operators ramping up opposition. ProphetX Section 4(c) framework likely getting more coverage as deadline approaches. Most operator comments probably already filed.
- Rasmont response: Probably still unrebutted. The MetaDAO community doesn't engage with critique in published form — they respond on X (which I can't see).
- MetaDAO: Post-reset activity. Looking for ICO cadence recovery signal.

---

## Actual Findings (post-search)

### 9th Circuit / Kalshi v. Nevada
**Status: No ruling yet.** The 9th Circuit declined emergency intervention in Nevada's block of Kalshi but held a consolidated hearing the week of April 14. Outcome of that hearing not yet in accessible sources as of April 22. The ruling is still pending.

**What I didn't expect:** The Ohio development. Casino.org reports Kalshi was fined $5M by Ohio's Casino Control Commission for operating an unlicensed sportsbook "following a federal court determination." If this is a Sixth Circuit-level ruling against CFTC preemption, it creates a formal circuit split with the Third Circuit (which ruled FOR preemption on April 7). VERIFICATION NEEDED on the legal basis before claiming circuit split.

**State offensive broadening:** New York AG Letitia James sued Coinbase and Gemini (not Kalshi) on April 21 for illegal gambling. This is qualitatively significant — states are now targeting institutional-grade federally licensed exchanges, not just specialized prediction market platforms. Kalshi avoided being named by pre-emptively suing NY in federal court.

### Insider Trading Pattern
**Confirmed continuation:** Kalshi flagged three politician insider trading cases (April 22). Three candidates bet on own candidacies:
- Virginia: Mark Moran, $6,229 fine + disgorgement + 5-year ban (intentional "expose" attempt)
- Minnesota: Matt Klein, $540 fine + 5-year ban (cooperative)
- Texas: Ezekiel Enriquez, $784 fine + 5-year ban (cooperative)

**Pattern update:** Now three categories of insider traders tracked across sessions: (1) government officials with policy information (Iran ceasefire, Venezuela), (2) ICO teams with operational information (P2P.me), (3) political candidates with electoral information (this session). Each category has different enforcement mechanisms needed.

**Adversarial self-testing:** Moran deliberately violated rules to create a political scandal. This is a novel threat model — adversarial actors who use prediction market violations as political performance art.

### Rasmont Critique
**Still unrebutted at 3 months.** LessWrong post (January 26, 2026) has 0 comments. No public response from metaproph3t, Kollan House, or MetaDAO. Mikhail Samin's "No, Futarchy Doesn't Have This EDT Flaw" (June 2025) addresses related but distinct concern — Rasmont's specific Bronze Bull/selection-correlation version remains unanswered.

**GnosisDAO advisory futarchy** (already archived) is the most architecturally interesting response: advisory (non-binding) futarchy removes the selection-correlation feedback loop by design, because approval doesn't determine outcomes. But MetaDAO is binding, not advisory. This isn't a response to Rasmont — it's a different mechanism design.

### CFTC ANPRM
**Closes approximately April 26-30** (45 days from March 12 Federal Register publication). Final week of comment activity. All major operator comments likely already filed. After deadline, track comment summary from Norton Rose/Holland & Knight.

**Confirmed gap:** ANPRM 40 questions do not distinguish futarchy governance markets from sports prediction markets. The KB claim `cftc-anprm-comment-record-lacks-futarchy-governance-market-distinction-creating-default-gambling-framework` stands confirmed. No one is advocating for the futarchy distinction in the comment record.

### GENIUS Act
New article: "Banks seek to slow down GENIUS Act implementation" (CoinDesk, April 22) — headline only, content inaccessible. Regulatory implementing rules not due until July 18, 2026 (one year after signing). Bank opposition to implementation is a meaningful signal about stablecoin adoption timeline.

---

## Follow-up Directions

### Active Threads (continue next session)
- **9th Circuit ruling**: If it drops today or tomorrow, file the Rule 40.11 paradox claim immediately with the actual holding as evidence. Key question: does the opinion address on-chain governance markets as a distinct category?
- **ANPRM April 30 deadline**: After deadline, track comment summary/analysis. Specifically: did any comment explicitly distinguish futarchy governance markets from sports prediction markets? This is the KB gap — no one is advocating for the distinction.
- **Rasmont rebuttal vacuum**: If still unrebutted at May 1, draft a KB claim: "Futarchy's information extraction depends on baseline market depth rather than generating independent price discovery." This is testable empirically — compare MFUSD conditional market volume to MetaDAO AMM volume.
- **MetaDAO ICO cadence post-reset**: First new ICO launch after omnibus proposal = first evidence of whether the reset achieved its throughput goal.

### Dead Ends (don't re-run these)
- **Polymarket direct access**: 403 errors on most direct Polymarket content. Use secondary analysis (Blockworks, Bloomberg) if accessible.
- **CFTC.gov primary sources**: ECONNREFUSED in multiple sessions. Use law firm analyses (Norton Rose, Holland & Knight, Morgan Lewis) as more accessible proxies.
- **MetaDAO Discord/Telegram primary sources**: Not web-accessible. Use Pine Analytics and Solana Compass as secondary coverage.

### Branching Points (one finding opened multiple directions)
- **ProphetX Section 4(c) framework**: If this gains traction as the "clean solution" to Rule 40.11, it could be more important for futarchy's regulatory future than the preemption fight. Direction A: archive ProphetX's full proposal and track congressional reaction. Direction B: analyze whether Section 4(c) framework would cover governance markets or only sports contracts. **Pursue Direction B first** — it directly tests whether futarchy has a path in the new regulatory architecture.
- **Tribal gaming IGRA angle**: This is a politically powerful coalition (federal trust obligations, treaty rights, $37B industry). Direction A: track IGA congressional testimony on ANPRM. Direction B: analyze whether IGRA federal preemption argument, if successful, would actually protect state gambling exclusivity from decentralized on-chain markets. **Pursue Direction B** — the IGRA angle only threatens centralized platforms with physical presence; pure on-chain futures markets may be outside IGRA's scope entirely.
