US Representative James Comer Seeks Trading and Identity Records From Three Crypto Venues

Rep. James Comer is asking Crypto.com, Hyperliquid and PredictIt to explain how they identify users, spot suspicious trades and refer possible wrongdoing to authorities.

The House Oversight Committee chair’s requests put a familiar crypto promise under a sharper light: that platforms can connect trading activity to real people and catch abuse before markets are harmed. They are requests for information, not findings that any of the three companies broke the law.

Each company received a different set of questions

Comer sent the letters on Tuesday. He wants details on the tools each company uses to flag trades that may involve nonpublic information.

He also asked for a list of referrals to regulators or law enforcement over the past two and a half years. That part matters because it points beyond written policy. It asks what happened when a monitoring system, or perhaps a person behind it, thought something warranted another look.

The letters go beyond general policy questions:

• At Crypto.com, Comer asked whether employees of its affiliates traded on contracts tied to corporate decisions they knew about before those decisions became public. His examples included token listings and custody decisions.
• He also sought records on government officials who may have traded on contracts linked to crypto regulation or Crypto.com’s own regulatory status.
• At Hyperliquid, the focus is a reported large leveraged short position placed before a major US tariff announcement last October. Comer asked how the platform identifies account holders and refers suspicious trades to US authorities.
• At PredictIt, owned by Aristotle Exchange, Comer sought information about trades connected to elections, nominations and other government actions involving current or former officials.

The Hyperliquid report is not described in enough detail to establish who controlled the account, how large the position was or how it performed. The underlying letters were not linked, so their exact wording and requested deadlines are also unconfirmed.

Identity checks meet a harder trading question

For a prediction market, knowing who placed a bet can matter when the bet concerns government action. The useful question is not simply whether a platform has an identity form, but whether it can connect a user to activity that may reflect privileged information.

That is the operating choice inside Comer’s inquiry. A platform can collect information, use it to monitor trading and refer possible cases. The letters ask the companies to show how those steps work in practice.

The source does not establish what identity or surveillance powers each platform currently has, or what legal protections apply to the requested data. Those questions would need the actual letters and relevant law before anyone could draw a firmer conclusion.

A possible ban is still on the table

Comer said his campaign is intended to assess the extent of insider trading and could lead to legislation barring government officials from trading on prediction markets.

“As online prediction platforms grow and become more mainstream, some bad actors have exploited the platforms to make thousands of dollars by placing bets based on nonpublic information,” Comer said.

The inquiry builds on letters sent in May to Kalshi and Polymarket. The committee said it had since received nearly 1,000 documents and several briefings from those companies’ representatives.

None of Crypto.com, Hyperliquid or PredictIt had responded. Their side of the story is therefore still missing, as are the detailed records needed to test the allegations and questions behind the letters.