Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Orders Development Of Prediction Markets App

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg instructed a small team to develop a prediction market app, which will compete with Polymarket and Kalshi.

Decentralized prediction markets are one of the fastest-growing trends, quickly transitioning from a niche to a global powerhouse. The massive potential of the sector has caught the attention of Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

It led Zuckerberg to form a team to work on an app that would go head-to-head with industry giants like Polymarket and Kalshi.

Meta’s Experimental Prediction Market App

According to a New York Times exclusive, the experimental app is internally called “Arena.” Zuckerberg wants it to operate as a separate application from their flagship social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram.

Two employees familiar with the matter revealed that Zuckerberg formed only a small team for Arena. The report somehow ties up with earlier claims that some people close to Zuckerberg have found him spending so much time coding recently, suggesting he’s taking a hands-on approach to a new project.

The sources said the app’s initial plan does not involve real money. They suggested that it would only employ a video game points-like system to enable users to wager on certain events. However, they didn’t rule out the possibility that Meta may eventually integrate real currency in its operations.

Leveraging Meta’s Vast User Base

The employees strictly requested anonymity due to the highly confidential nature of the project. Nonetheless, they also disclosed that Meta aims to leverage its mass user base to put Arena on the map immediately.

As of December 2025, Meta has already grown to 3.58 billion daily users. Meanwhile, the monthly active users in its whole ecosystem, consisting of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, are nearly 4 billion.

Arena’s Direct Competitors

Meta is one of the world’s largest companies by market cap, with a valuation of roughly $1.43 trillion. Its planned venture into the prediction market space will enable it to compete with Polymarket’s $15 billion and Kalshi’s $22 billion platforms.

Bernstein, a prominent private wealth management firm, underscored the massive potential that Meta is about to unlock. Its latest comprehensive market report projected that the total annual prediction market volumes could soar by up to $1 trillion by 2030, driven by a 80% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

Prediction Markets’ Regulatory Minefield

The unprecedented success of prediction markets has placed them directly at the crosshairs of the gaming industry, though. Last week, various groups in the US, including national organizations, tribal organizations, state associations, and labor groups, urged lawmakers to include provisions in the pending Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act that ban sports activities on these platforms.

The group pointed out that prediction markets are bypassing existing state and tribal gaming laws, which negatively impacts the gaming industry, consumers, and jobs in communities. Furthermore, they opposed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) “exclusive authority” over prediction markets, arguing that these platforms should fall under state and tribal jurisdictions.

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