The Future of Prediction Markets & AI in Crypto with Malak Alba | Ep 17

🎙️New HODL FM Podcast is live!

In this episode, Tanya sits down with Malak Alba — PR advisor, journalist, and co-host of ‪https://www.youtube.com/@searchingformanapodcast, to discuss everything from AI infrastructure and sovereign wealth funds to prediction markets, regulation, and the Clarity Act, to understand where crypto fits inside a rapidly shifting global financial system.

Is Bitcoin stabilizing or weakening?
Are we entering a new “Great Depression”?
Why were stablecoins discussed more than crypto at Davos?
And is the AI bubble really safe?

🔗 Guest:
Malak Alba → https://www.linkedin.com/in/malak-albaw/
Searching for Mana Podcast → https://www.youtube.com/@searchingformanapodcast

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⏱️ Timecodes:

01:25 — Institutions entered crypto… so why isn’t BTC booming?
02:24 — “Crypto is just a small piece of a bigger system”
02:56 — Are we entering a new Great Depression?
03:45 — What Davos 2026 actually focused on
06:52 — Why stablecoins mattered more than crypto
07:34 — Crypto becoming mainstream
08:15 — Are prediction markets truly unregulated?
09:24 — Anonymous betting & insider advantages
09:41 — $6B in prediction market contracts
12:02 — Institutions entering prediction markets
14:56 — The Clarity Act: bullish or restrictive?
18:59 — AI is linked to trading
19:05 — Can AI make us trade smarter?
22:13 — Will the AI bubble burst?
23:06 — 2026: Crypto cycle shift & what’s next

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

We're kind of entering to the Great Depression. Bitcoin is gonna be booming. Crypto is just, you know, a small piece out of a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Crypto is kind of undefined and uh the cycle has changed a lot. You can use this and you can win quite uh big. Crypto becoming much more mainstream than it used to be, even like two, three years ago.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

There hasn't been much focus on the crypto topic, but more focus on stable coins. There's around like uh six billion uh dollars in prediction market contracts that are now being traded, which is insane. Prediction market is a thing quite similar to gambling. So the future is AI is linked to trading. You don't think that AI bubble will burst, do you? Not yet. I think we're still far from it.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Hello everyone and welcome back to Hodle of Fam. I'm Tanya, your host, and today we're joined by Malek Alba, and she will tell us about the latest happenings in crypto. She went to Davos, she will share some insights about what was discussed between the big minds over there. And to begin with, it would be great to know more about your background. Maybe you could tell about what you're working on right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Thanks, Tania, for the quick introduction. So, yeah, my name is Malek Alba. I go by Alba just because it's easier. I lived eight years in Italy. I was born and raised in the Middle East. And uh right now I've been in different industries juggling and wearing different hats. So I'm a PR advisor for uh different startups in the Web3 space. Um, I'm also a journalist and a show co-host of Searching for Mana podcast. We do these thought leadership interviews with global leaders, and uh it is affiliated by the London Stock Exchange. Um, and yeah, I basically uh also try to do research and learn as much as possible about uh the industry uh that is focusing on AI, prediction markets, and of course cryptocurrencies.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Right now we see that crypto is joined by institutional players, and it's been like everyone was waiting for big institutions to join the game, and everyone was thinking that Bitcoin is gonna be booming, but we see a completely opposite thing. We see that they're much more experienced than uh traditional players. And what is your take on what's happening in the market right now? Is it uh going to bounce back or is Bitcoin going to stay as um like more like a cable thing?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

I mean, uh there's a lot of ways to answer this question. There's no right or wrong because uh the future is unpredictable, as you can imagine. Uh but one way to put this is if we go back back to history to the Great Depression in 1929. I I have a I have a very strong feeling from all the events that has been happening so far with the financial industry as a whole, because crypto is just you know a small piece out of a lot of different things. We still have the SP 500, we have also commodities, they are all affected by the global activities that is happening, that whether it's geopolitical, whether it's the tariff, uh the US is playing, and we also have the the AI race as well, and the energy uh topic on a side. So uh it's it's very difficult to say where we are right now, but definitely uh in terms of the events, we're kind of entering to the Great Depression. Uh, it might not be a very optimal answer you're seeking, but uh I think even Andrew Sorkin, one of the most famous uh journalists in in finance of all time, he also wrote this book and he published it last year, which is a very interesting time given that all of this inflation that's been happening in the world, the tariffs, it's making us take a step back and uh see before we kind of invest or make any decisions, we must look at the future ahead and the way to live by what's happening right now with the market volatility that like you mentioned. We must uh consume data and research. And the way we can do this is through prediction markets and AI.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Okay, and what about um your recently trip to Davos? So you went there, and uh since I think 2018, crypto became one of the topics majorly discussed uh during Davos forums. There were lots of dinners happening uh devoted to crypto discussions and lots of lots of talks uh around crypto. What was happening this year and what do big minds say about what's gonna happen generally in the financial system? And uh is crypto going to be involved somehow?

SPEAKER_00 5:14

So this year's theme was still focused on energy consumption and how we can use tech in the most sustainable way possible. With AI, you have uh small language models and you have also large language models. So it was very much common in the beginning of the AI race that a lot of um companies were also training their AI agents using LLMs rather than you know small, sophisticated models because it just it's just very niche and specific. And sometimes if you have large capacity of data, it's easier to to run it through LLMs. But now it the the talk uh as I seen during Davos 2026, is that there's so much focusing on uh using AI in the most uh efficient way, in terms of energy, and the way to do this is to design and localize these language models. So let's take uh for example, uh in Saudi Arabia, uh they have this company called Humane, and uh they've gotten like a massive um uh funding round from um one of the biggest sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, PIF, um, and I think it was like billions. And the reason why they're investing so much in the infrastructure of uh printing out AI chips and you know building an infrastructure dedicated for the uh Arabic language, uh, where you know AI will would understand uh all the data that is, you know, maybe traditionally not very recognized by an English uh AI model. So this would really much allow the AI to um think faster, to compute these kind of computations way faster and thus uh saving out energy. So uh there was this now trend going on is like how we can train these AI models to do specific things. So, you know, in Vienna it would make sense to have a German LLM or SLM that would, you know, focus on maybe doing autonomous autonomous uh tasks uh for a specific niche. Uh, if like manufacturing is famous in in Austria, for instance, or in Germany, then that would be the focus. So AI AI doesn't have to contain all the data needed because it's just so much computing power. And that is what I noticed right now in Davos, how we can make AI more sustainable. And for your question about crypto, there hasn't been much focus on the crypto topic, but more focus onto stable coins, onto you know, the Clarity Act now is coming into place uh in the US, and there will be even more uh legislation happening for prediction markets. So uh right now, regulatory framework is is becoming a key topic.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Yeah, regulatory framework is really very, very important because until quite recently, everything related to crypto was uh considered to be quite shady, sketchy, and not really reliable. Right now, we see the situation is changing with crypto becoming much more mainstream than it used to be, even like two, three years ago. When it comes to like the niche and the development of the niche, I see that uh prediction markets are being a very, very big thing right now. But this is a thing which is not highly regulated. What do you think is gonna be next uh in terms of regulation? Because if we look at poly markets, uh poly market is as far as I know, it's banned in the US, it's also banned in Portugal and in many countries, but this is the only way people are like the the regulation is happening. So they just prohibit it, and that's more or less it. What do you think is gonna be for the prediction market? And does it make any sense to build a prediction market right now?

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Yeah, you know, Tanya, um, before going to Davos, I thought the same thing. I was thinking, okay, uh, prediction markets are unregulated. And I was speaking with this, I came across this very interesting person in Davos. He was one of the first uh advisors to Calci, which is another um prediction market uh platform. And he was telling me, no, actually, Calci in some way, it is kind of regulated by the sense that each um user, whether you like, for example, if if you want to open an account, you still need to do KYC, you need to do your identity verified. Uh, and they do this kind of way to uh make sure that there's no insider info, like so it's not anonymous. But with uh PolyMarket, which is probably one of the famous uh prediction market platforms, especially in the crypto world, um, it's unregulated, unfortunately. So you can be anonymous if you hear or if you see any kind of information that's taken to your advantage, you can use this and you can win quite uh big. But to take you a step back um on prediction market, which is I think it's one of my favorite uh topics as a journalist to talk about because it's uh very much of a fast-growing uh segment in the financial space. It's been taking off so much. I think there's around like uh six billion uh dollars in prediction market contracts that are now being traded, which is insane. Uh, and uh the funny part is that also in crypto, uh in our under in our industry, also Robinhood and Coingate, going Coinbase, they are also you know entering to this rally, and there's gonna be more uh names to follow. So to kind of speak about regulation, at the moment, uh you have uh the CFTC, which is in in the United States, is the Commodity Futures uh Trading Commission, and uh it is regulating these uh prediction markets. Uh they kind of see the prediction market contracts as event contracts, so they kind of fall into the existing um purview of the CFTC. But um there's still very uncertainty when it comes to you know insider trading. Uh, we've seen that um with the with the the latest news about Venezuela, that someone from the US had some insider information and they traded and they placed a bet. Uh so they got a lot of win. So uh how can regulation really like stop insider trading from happening? This is still a big question mark. But you know, alongside I'm predicting that a major piece of a new uh legislation uh would would come out, will be uh, you know, coming its way through the Congress, and there will be an interest of how we can uh uh uh preserve the integrity of prediction markets. Uh, you know, I think like now the the biggest bet so far is that um, you know, Wall Street investment banks like uh Goldman Sachs, uh, they already see prediction markets to be um a good fit for uh its derivative trading business. It's kind of a way of how like Wall Street is kind of connected, right? Like they have this sophisticated modeling of key economic and political events, and that really much is all about prediction markets, especially polymarket, when you can place a bet on crypto, on uh politics, uh also on sports.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

So it's a very interesting industry. It's a very interesting industry, and I heard that there's a lot of institutional interest uh when it comes to prediction markets, on one hand. But on the other hand, prediction market is a thing quite similar to gambling if we look at some point of view, uh at some from from a different different angle, because it makes you uh it enables you to bet on some like kind of uh political event or some sports sports events which is already happening on major uh gambling platforms. However, um what do you think in terms of institutions? Are they already joining the prediction market scene? And how is it actually happening if you know because if on one hand like poly market it's banned in many countries, how can institutions actually legally um join uh any kind of prediction market, which is not like Calci, which is regulated and and it is not really crypto. How can institutions join the crypto prediction markets uh when it comes to like regulation and uh having most of them banned?

SPEAKER_00 14:07

There's definitely like some loopholes that some institutions can uh enter to the prediction markets as long as it as long as the event contract you're they're using falls into the the legislation of what is set um under the CFTC in the US, but it's still very tricky. Uh even like with Calcian Poland Market, they're still facing so much regulate regulatory uh scrutiny. But definitely there's ways that people are not stopping it, and absolutely like it's still very unclear. Um, but uh what's what's happening right now, like if we take, for example, Robinhood, uh they're launching this uh new initiative for their Robinhood Gold members where you have this kind of AI-powered investing assistant. And I kind of wonder like if these AI assistants they can help you invest in the stock market, you know, why can't they help you invest in prediction markets as well? And there might be some tools that institutions will be using to make us predict smarter. So not necessary uh to have these institutions implement um the mechanisms of prediction markets, but maybe we we would be seeing more tools supporting us or even media, like for instance, CNN. Um I'm not sure if it's CNN or or CNBC, one of the legacy medias, they already signed a partnership deal with Calci. So I I have uh got a feeling that we might see more institutions, but I think that will happen after the Clarity Act uh that will be taking place uh around summer.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

And what do you think about Clarity Act? Is it going to help the next bounce for for for the whole crypto market or is it going to make uh like crypto even more regulated, more stable, with more restrictions, uh and and so on? Because uh Mikai in Europe, for example, it's in my opinion, it didn't help uh crypto adoption within Europe because it just made crypto similar to banks. And if we look at uh mentality of any crypto trader, any any person who is interested in crypto and using crypto, it's mostly about anonymity, about having um your control over your funds. Whereas Mika is trying to take it from you. What do you think is gonna happen with the Clarity Act?

SPEAKER_00 16:40

So with the with the Clarity Act, I think it's gonna be one of the most important crypto bills because it kind of clarifies how digital assets are are classified under law. And you know, like Ryan Armstrong from Goinbase, uh, he also had some some comments on on the Clarity Act because it definitely will classify um a lot of different um, you know, uh assets in the crypto industry. Like back in 2018, we had this whole talk about you know whether this uh class uh asset class is a security or not, and now um uh there will be even more laws being passed. So um that would make a lot of exchanges, a lot of uh digital asset firm even uh more uh prudent about you know the kind of asset uh classes that they're trading on the market. And so we might have a step back, but I think that's definitely still good. Uh we I was speaking with the uh governor of Bermuda, uh Anthony Howell, and he explained to me that you know the Clarity Act is just a small piece of the puzzle. There's a lot of you know digital asset firms that are registered in Bermuda and Cayman Islands. So for the US markets, uh it's definitely a bit of a step back. I think regulation seems a bit more clear. Even in a circle, um, you know, the issuer of the USDC is also under under a lot of pressure, as well as Coinbase that will be very much impacted by the Clarity Act. Uh, a significant portion of its revenue actually comes from uh stablecoin reward products, which the bill, as it's written, would restrict uh stablecoin yielding. So if you know the Coinbase uh revenue is is uh stemming from stable coins, then you know that that's kind of like about $1.3 billion just generated from stablecoin yield. So I have a feeling, you know, it won't be good news for um the the A players in crypto. But for the newcomers, I think, you know, that's about time, you know, that we see regulations, even if it hurts some other companies like Coinbase.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yeah, maybe, maybe we'll see. For the newcomers, it's gonna make probably crypto much easier and um much more similar to what banks do in terms of uh processes and uh procedures. And um, Alba, before we wrap it up, I would like to uh move to the topic of AI. AI is entering every actually every uh sphere of our lives. And I was wondering about your thoughts on how AI is gonna be um used in crypto because um it's it was anticipated to be one of the main um like narrative of uh of 2025-2024, it never happened though. Uh, what is the future of AI and crypto?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

So the future is AI is linked to trading, that's not a question. Uh, because if AI can make us trade smarter, can give us insights, it can really much help uh a beginner investor to trade uh stock options, to you know, to do a lot of things that uh you as an investor, you as a person are not able to do. Uh, and I see this already with exchanges, like like I mentioned before, like Robin Hood, eToro. I was speaking with Yoni uh in Abu Dhabi about Itoro uh Toro's roadmap, and he told me, well, AI is is in our conversation right now. Uh, after he had this dinner with Warren Buffett, uh, you know, he realized, you know, how can we uh replicate one of the smartest and uh traders of all time, replicate that into an AI model for other people to use and uh and kind of mimic that thought process that they have into an AI model. So right now uh there is this um kind of tool called Tori, where you can actually use it to ask questions about any kind of uh stock that you want to buy or sell, and it will definitely give you the answer as if you know it was uh Warren Buffett or Nancy Pelosi from all of their past trading history. So I think that's very fascinating. Like the way that Saudi Arabia is implementing AI, I think there will be a lot of AI assistance coming into place that the government can use uh and to in order to kind of um uh classify and make it easier for the citizen to get all the services that they need. And you've probably already seen this in in Dubai or in Saudi Arabia, they're already having these smart AI assistance playing into place, uh, and we're probably gonna see even more um race towards AI in in terms of nations. So, right now in the US, uh you have a lot of VCs that are only investing into uh data mining infrastructures to uh build and design AI chips. The reason for this is because a lot of nations are competing for power and for also designing the most native models that can be understood by the region. So we will we're gonna see more of this. We're gonna see more uh local uh collaborations, you know, between different cities in the country, like in the US, for instance. We're gonna see a lot of investments being poured. So sovereign wealth funds like you know PIF or like Mubadala in UAE, they're gonna be investing more on their infrastructure. I don't really believe that we're gonna see a lot of um foreign AI investments uh that will be you know taking out the place now. I think the the game here is uh to rally and to produce the most uh independent uh AI computing power that the country can do.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

So in a nutshell, you don't think that AI bubble will burst, do you?

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Not yet. I think we're still far from it. But the AI um uh startup valuations, I think it's a bit uh frightening. Like with Anthropic, um that's um launched cloud.ai, I think it's one of the best um, you know, AI engines I've ever used in my life. Uh they are you know going ahead for uh IPO and right now their number their valuation is like three digits in billions. It's like I think $100 billion valuation. I mean, you'd never seen this kind of number before. And I think there's just so much hope, and I don't know if that is good or bad, per se.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

We will see what's gonna happen in 2026. It's set to be a very, very interesting year because uh crypto is kind of undefined and uh the cycle has changed a lot. AI is uh also like it has a lot of room to grow so to say, and it's gonna be interesting to see what's gonna happen next this year. Thanks a lot. It was Malak Alba with us. Uh thank you for such an interesting and insightful session. I hope you guys liked it. And don't forget to like this video, to follow HuddleFM, to check out Alba's socials, and see you during the next session. Bye. Thanks, Dania.