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Weekly prediction market volume set a new high-water mark above $2 billion as Polymarket retakes its lead over competitor Kalshi, according to Dune Analytics data.
Both Polymarket and Kalshi have experienced massive increases in user activity and trading volume over the last several months, as prediction markets as a whole gain broader mainstream awareness and adoption.
Kalshi, as the first federally regulated prediction market platform in the U.S., saw a leap in user activity in August—not coincidentally at the start of the new NFL season—and overtook Polymarket in trading volume for the first time. Polymarket, now poised to reenter the U.S. market, began beta testing its U.S. app just over a week ago and has retaken pole position in the lead-up to upcoming November elections.
The notional volume by category shows that politics has been quickly picking up momentum in recent weeks. But it hasn’t been enough to outpace sports markets, which drove $414.7 million worth of volume last week compared to $322.6 million in politics markets across the sector.
The industry as a whole came very close to surpassing $2 billion weekly volume last November, when President Donald Trump was reelected. But market share among the big players looked a little different then.
Polymarket accounted for $1.2 billion, Kalshi for $749 million, and Limitless for $5.2 million worth of volume. Now, Polymarket still leads with $1 billion worth of volume, but it’s more closely followed by Kalshi’s $950 million. Kalshi had been outperforming Polymarket in volume for the past eight weeks.
Meanwhile, Limitless has quadrupled its footprint to $21.9 million, and Myriad, a product of Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, has grown to $3.8 million worth of weekly volume.
The prediction market industry has also recently benefited from a relaxed regulatory environment in the United States, at least at the federal level. Both Polymarket and Kalshi received CFTC no-action letters earlier this year—Kalshi in May and Polymarket in September. The letters gave the companies the green light to open their platforms to U.S. users without the looming threat of enforcement action from the federal regulator. But a growing number of state regulators have challenged their status as CFTC-regulated entities.
Neither Polymarket nor Kalshi immediately responded to a request for comment from Decrypt.
Nevertheless, as regulators largely relax and users swarm to prediction markets, company valuations have swelled. Kalshi earlier this month closed a $300 million series D round of funding that valued the company at $5 billion. It was led by venture capital giants a16z and Sequoia—and notably included crypto exchange Coinbase. This appears to be the first time that Coinbase was listed as an investor in the U.S.-based prediction market company.
Meanwhile, Polymarket recently secured a $2 billion investment from New York Stock Exchange parent company Intercontinental Exchange. That pushed the company to a $9 billion valuation.
An often cited Certuity report estimates that prediction markets could reach $95.5 billion by 2035, with a compound annual growth rate of 46.8%.
Myriad users still doubt that Polymarket is going to formally announce the launch of its token in 2025. Predictors give it a 15% chance Polymarket announces its token this year. Decrypt reported a little over a week ago that Polymarket plans to launch a native token—but likely not before January.
But that hasn’t stopped airdrop farmers from trying to pad their future allocation.
Last year, as many users anticipated that a token launch would follow the U.S. election, farmers bought and sold large positions to artificially inflate their volume. They did so in an effort to position themselves for a larger allocation of a future token airdrop, which are often designed to reward a crypto protocol’s most active and fervent users.
Now, prediction market insiders tell Decrypt the airdrop farmers have become more sophisticated in an attempt to circumvent any anti-farming conditions for token allocation.
