Forget betting on which stocks will win or lose from an election. What if you could just bet on the election itself? That's the premise behind a new wave of ETF filings that aim to bring prediction markets to the mainstream investing public.

Two ETF issuers, Bitwise and GraniteShares, are asking regulators for permission to launch funds that are directly linked to who wins the White House and Congress. It's another step in the long march of turning everything—even politics—into a tradeable asset.

Bitwise, through its PredictionShares lineup, wants to list six ETFs on the NYSE Arca. According to the paperwork, two funds would be tied to the 2028 U.S. presidential election: one would pay off if a Democrat wins, the other if a Republican wins. The remaining four would focus on which party controls the Senate and the House after the 2026 midterm elections.

GraniteShares submitted filings for an identical six-fund structure targeting the same elections and outcomes. It seems they both had the same lightbulb moment.

The All-or-Nothing ETF

So how would these things actually work? The filings say each fund would put at least 80% of its money into "binary event contracts" traded on CFTC-regulated exchanges. Here's the simple version: each contract is a bet on a single yes-or-no event.

If the event happens—say, a Republican wins the presidency in 2028—the contract settles at $1. If it doesn't happen, it settles at $0. That's it. The ETF's share price would bounce between zero and a dollar, basically tracking the market's live odds on that political outcome as polls and news flow in.

The prospectuses are blunt about the risk: if your chosen party loses, you could lose nearly all your money. This isn't a gentle tilt in your portfolio; it's a binary bet, wrapped in an ETF wrapper.

You've Seen This Movie Before

This isn't the first attempt to package election forecasts as an investable product. Earlier this month, Roundhill Financial also proposed six prediction market-style ETFs linked to presidential and congressional outcomes.

If approved, these funds would be one of the purest examples yet of turning election forecasting—something usually done by pollsters and pundits—into a mainstream financial product. It's a far cry from traditional political-themed ETFs that might hold stocks expected to benefit from certain policies. This is betting on the policy-makers themselves.

It reflects the ETF industry's endless quest for new, niche exposures. First it was sectors, then factors, then themes. Now, it seems, it might be specific future events. Whether that's a useful tool for investors or just financialization for its own sake is a question the market—and maybe the regulators—will have to answer.