Kazakhstan's newly launched Prediction Market has begun concluding its first trades. The operations are still in test mode, and not all clients have access to the instrument. This was stated by Sergey Lukyanov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Freedom Finance Global PLC, in an interview as part of Astana Finance Days 2026. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
According to Lukyanov, the new financial instrument presented by the international trading platform ITS has already attracted the attention of potential partners.
"A lot of people came to us after the presentation who were interested, partners who want to participate in this and so on. On the first day, quite a lot of deals were concluded, but for now they are of a test nature, far from all clients have access to them," Lukyanov said.
He believes that in the future the prediction market could become as much in demand as the cryptocurrency market.
Prediction Market allows investors to trade contracts whose value depends on the occurrence of a certain event. For example, market participants can forecast central bank decisions on interest rates or changes in the value of financial assets.
Unlike traditional stock purchases, an investor acquires a contract on a specific outcome of an event.
The international trading platform ITS launched Prediction Market on September 8, 2026, as part of the ITS Ideas conference held during Astana Finance Days. The first instruments were four event options linked to the price of bitcoin, an asset with the ticker SPCX, the base rate of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, and the interest rate of the US Federal Reserve.
In particular, one of the contracts allows forecasting whether the National Bank's base rate will exceed 16.75%, and another — whether the upper bound of the Fed's target rate range will be above 3.75%.
The cost of such options ranges from $0.01 to $0.99. If the forecast comes true, the settlement value of the contract at execution equals $1; if not — $0. At the same time, before the settlement date, the contract can be sold to another market participant. Thus, an investor can earn income if they correctly predict the event, or lose the invested funds if their forecast turns out to be wrong.
Lukyanov positively assessed the decision of the financial regulator of the AIFC to allow the launch of the prediction market.
In his opinion, the emergence of Prediction Market expands the capabilities of the Kazakh financial market and increases the attractiveness of the AIFC for international participants.
Trading in event options is carried out within the framework of FinTech Lab — a special regulatory regime of the AIFC Financial Services Regulatory Committee (AFSA). It allows testing innovative financial products in controlled conditions. At the same time, the list of events permitted by the regulator is limited to financial and economic indicators.
As examples of foreign platforms, Lukyanov cited the American Kalshi and Polymarket, where participants trade contracts on the outcome of various events.
According to him, the prediction market has gone from experimental financial instruments to large trading platforms attracting the interest of professional investors.
"That is exactly why the instrument became quite popular," noted the Chairman of the Management Board of Freedom Finance JSC, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Freedom Finance Global PLC, speaking about the use of event contracts for managing financial risks.
Lukyanov believes that in the future similar instruments could become widespread in Kazakhstan.
At the same time, the launch of Prediction Market on ITS is still taking place within the framework of a special regulatory regime. Therefore, the availability of the instrument for investors and the set of permitted events remain limited.