Cboe’s Binary Bets Reboot: A Polymarket Rival in the Making

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Don’t panic-Cboe is musing about relaunching binary options for retail investors, in a move that sounds suspiciously like giving regulated life to the more chaotic cousins of wagering. The plan is to offer centrally cleared, fixed-return contracts under SEC or CFTC oversight, with a focus on financial markets rather than politics or athletics.

  • Cboe Global Markets is in early-stage talks with retail brokerages to relaunch all-or-nothing binary options that would compete with on-chain prediction markets like Polymarket.
  • The plan is to offer regulated, centrally cleared fixed-return contracts under SEC or CFTC oversight, centered on financial markets rather than politics or sports.
  • Polymarket has logged hundreds of millions in volume and claims up to about 94% accuracy, a blueprint Cboe hopes to copy with more traditional, institutional infrastructure.

Cboe circles binary options reboot

Cboe Global Markets is quietly strolling back into the binary-wager business, obviously compiling the kind of restrained enthusiasm that only a suits-and-cravats economy can muster when faced with on-chain prediction giants such as Polymarket. The Wall Street Journal says they’re “in discussions with retail brokerages to relaunch ‘all-or-nothing’ options contracts for individual investors that would vie with prediction markets,” quoting people familiar with the matter.

The chatter is still at an early stage, and Cboe says it is also working with market makers on “revamped binary options, sometimes called fixed-return contracts,” that pay out either a set cash amount or nothing at all. “This represents, in my view, a new entry point for many individuals looking to engage in the options market,” a Cboe executive told Yahoo Finance, adding that any launch would undergo “rigorous evaluations to ensure compliance with legal standards” under SEC or CFTC oversight.

Prediction markets set the pace

The timing isn’t accidental. Polymarket, branding itself as “the world’s largest prediction market,” has seen cumulative volumes climb into the hundreds of millions of dollars across more than 10,000 markets, even as researchers warn that parts of its turnover may be double-counted or inflated by wash trading. Monitoring tools such as Polymarket Monitor and research from Paradigm and Fortune highlight both depth and distortions. Independent analysis puts Polymarket’s odds around 90% accurate a month before resolution and up to 94% in the final hours before an event settles, according to studies cited by Yahoo Finance, The Defiant and Polymarket Research.

For crypto traders, these flows are tightly bound to digital-asset pricing. High-commitment yes/no bets on macro data, elections and ETF approvals routinely feed into Bitcoin futures and spot volatility, turning prediction odds into a live proxy for risk appetite. In the current scene, Bitcoin (BTC) hovers around $88,235, with a 24-hour high near $90,476 and a low near $87,549, on roughly $32.8B in dollar volumes. Ethereum (ETH) trades close to $2,953, with about $23.4B in 24-hour turnover and spot quotes clustered in the $4,500-$4,600 band on major exchanges earlier this week. Solana (SOL) trades around $192, up about 2.7% over the last 24 hours, with nearly $9.8B in volume.

Can Cboe pull flow back onshore?

By floating a regulated, centrally cleared all-or-nothing product that sticks to financial markets rather than political or sports outcomes, Cboe is effectively betting that some of that speculative energy can be redirected from on-chain venues back to listed derivatives. If it works, the next big crypto-linked binary trade may look less like a degenerate side bet on Polymarket and more like a highly structured ticket punched through a Chicago options screen.

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2026-02-03 16:32