Zuckerberg ordered Meta to develop an independent prediction market application, codenamed Arena

According to reports from two Meta employees cited by The New York Times, Mark Zuckerberg has instructed a small internal team to develop an independent prediction market application codenamed "Arena," which will operate separately from existing products like Facebook and Instagram.

The initial design uses a game-like points system instead of real money betting, but the possibility of introducing real money models in the future has not been ruled out. Following the announcement, the stock prices of Robinhood and DraftKings fell in early trading this week. Meta's applications have 3.56 billion daily active users, and their distribution scale far exceeds the total of all existing prediction market platforms; if they officially enter the market, it will directly impact crypto-native platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi.

The prediction market is currently in a rapid growth phase, with Polymarket's trading volume surpassing $10 billion for the first time in March this year. On the regulatory front, the CFTC is engaged in litigation regarding federal jurisdiction over prediction markets and state-level betting laws. Meta's points system design temporarily sidesteps this issue, but its scale means that any shift towards real money betting will immediately become a significant regulatory event.