Author: Biteye core contributor Viee
Editor: Biteye core contributor Denise
*Full text is about 3,800 words, estimated reading time is 10 minutes
Recently, the prediction market sector has seen a surge in popularity. In early October, ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, announced an investment of up to $2 billion in Polymarket, bringing its post-investment valuation to around $9 billion; a few days later, the US-compliant prediction market Kalshi also completed a $300 million financing round, with its valuation rising to $5 billion.
With massive financing, leading platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket have seen a spike in trading volume. Kalshi is expected to reach an annualized trading volume of $50 billion this year, capturing over 60% of the global market share and surpassing Polymarket for the first time.
As the crypto narrative cools and regulatory scrutiny intensifies, why are prediction markets being revisited? Has there really been a qualitative change in their product form? And which new-generation projects are trying to break away from the old path of "speculative games"?
The following are eight representative project samples, offering a glimpse into the different approaches in product design, compliance strategies, and financing logic within this sector.
01 Ploymarket, @Ploymarket
Polymarket is currently the world's largest prediction market platform, having secured $2.279 billion in massive financing. In October, ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, committed to investing up to $2 billion, bringing Polymarket's pre-investment valuation to $9 billion.
Polymarket was founded by Shayne Coplan in 2020. Shayne participated in the Ethereum ICO while in high school and is regarded as a "prodigy" in the crypto space. Facing regulatory pressure, Polymarket acquired the CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange QCEX for $112 million in 2025, thereby obtaining legal operating qualifications in the US.
Polymarket follows the classic prediction market model, allowing users to bet on the outcomes of various real-world events using cryptocurrencies. Users participate by purchasing "prediction shares," each representing a bet on a particular outcome. When the event outcome is revealed, users holding shares of the correct result receive corresponding returns. The entire trading process is conducted on-chain and settled in USDC, ensuring both fund stability and enhanced transparency.
02 Kalshi, @Kalshi
Kalshi is the first licensed and compliant comprehensive prediction market exchange in the US, having raised $515 million, led by Paradigm and a16z.
Kalshi was founded in 2018 at MIT by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara. The two founders chose the difficult but compliant path, engaging in a long-term struggle with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and ultimately became the first prediction market platform to obtain CFTC regulatory approval.
Since opening to the US market in 2021, Kalshi has offered event contracts in categories such as political elections, economic indicators, and sports events. In 2024, it won the right to list US presidential election contracts through litigation, filling a compliance gap.
03 The Clearing Company, @theclearingco
The Clearing Company is a prediction market launched by former team members of Kalshi and Polymarket, having raised $15 million. CEO Toni Gemayel previously served as head of platform growth at both Kalshi and Polymarket.
The platform is currently in the preparation and development stage. The team places great emphasis on simplifying the user experience, aiming to make the new product as easy for ordinary users as Robinhood or Coinbase, while also stressing compliant product design. From the concept, this type of product seeks a compromise between both ends—not straying too far from regulatory requirements while lowering the user understanding threshold. However, whether it can truly establish an effective market ecosystem remains to be seen.
04 Limitless, @trylimitless
Limitless is a high-frequency prediction market offering short-term price prediction contracts ranging from minutes to intraday. It has raised about $7 million, with well-known crypto funds 1confirmation and Coinbase Ventures as investors. It was founded in 2023 by CJ Hetherington and others.
Limitless officially launched on the Base mainnet in May 2025, later expanding to Arbitrum and other Layer 2s. Its product form is closer to traditional contract exchanges, allowing users to bet "Yes/No" in short-cycle price markets with preset expiration times, with results determined by on-chain oracles at settlement.
From the data, Limitless has created many ultra-short-term trading scenarios, with some users engaging in short-term arbitrage using quick and clear results. However, this has also drawn criticism from the community: some users pointed out that the platform once listed markets with predetermined outcomes or events that were almost impossible, and did not charge fees—for example, a BTC price market within 1.5 hours. Such "open card markets" were exploited by arbitrageurs to inflate trading volume. The team has since responded that market generation rules have been optimized to prevent such occurrences.
05 Opinion, @opinionlabsxyz
Opinion Labs (O.LAB) has currently raised $5 million, led by YZi Labs, with other investors including Echo, Animoca Ventures, Manifold Trading, Amber Group, and others.
In terms of progress, Opinion has launched a prediction market on the Monad testnet to collect community feedback and has a cooperative background with Binance Labs.
06 Melee, @meleemarkets
Melee is an emerging prediction market backed by Variant Fund, claiming to build "Viral Markets"—allowing any topic to generate a prediction market and gain traffic through viral spread. It has completed a $3.5 million financing round, with investors including Variant and DAO Builders Alliance (DBA). Co-founder and CEO Max previously served as Head of Strategy at Ava Labs and founded a short video influencer brand, giving him unique insights into community operations and business strategy.
As of now, Melee is still in the development and warm-up stage, with no official product launch yet. The official website currently only offers a waitlist registration, where users can join the candidate list by linking their X account. According to official sources, Melee's "viral market" concept features three main characteristics: any topic can become a market, creators can monetize in a closed loop, and early participants are incentivized. It is positioned at the intersection of social and prediction markets, aiming to stimulate broad participation through a UGC (user-generated market) model.
07 Football.Fun, @footballfun
Football.Fun centers on player prediction as its core mechanism, tokenizing real-world professional players into tradable "shares." Users can hold player cards and earn points and settlement rewards based on their performance in real matches. Founder Adam is a member of the WolvesDAO community. The project has completed a $2 million seed round, with investors including 6th Man Ventures, Zee Prime, Sfermion, and others.
08 Trepa, @trepa_io
Trepa focuses on quantitative prediction, allowing users to predict specific values for macroeconomic indicators and receive varying degrees of rewards based on the size of the error. It has completed about $420,000 in financing, with lead investor Colosseum, a fund founded by the former head of growth at the Solana Foundation.
The Trepa team was established in Singapore in 2024, with core members from cross-disciplinary backgrounds. It is currently in the public beta stage, where users can select a prediction topic (mostly macroeconomic or financial data, such as a country's inflation rate or quarterly GDP growth), then submit predictions by dragging a value slider or entering a specific value. Unlike traditional binary markets that only have "right/wrong," Trepa uses a continuous reward mechanism: the closer the predicted value is to the actual result, the higher the reward—even if the guess is off, users can still receive partial returns.
09 Compliance Risks: The Sector's Greatest Uncertainty
Looking at the eight projects above, it is clear that prediction markets have already shown significant differentiation in product design and technical implementation. However, regardless of the model, the common challenge remains how regulators define their legal attributes.
Prediction markets are inherently characterized by "speculation + gambling," making them a sensitive industry in most jurisdictions. In the US, a few projects like Kalshi have obtained compliance licenses, while Polymarket has attempted to build a legal path through acquisitions. However, most projects remain in a regulatory gray area.
In addition, even on-chain platforms inevitably face the following risks:
Market manipulation: A small amount of capital may influence price direction, undermining information efficiency
Oracle risk: Data source errors or attacks can directly lead to settlement errors
Contract security: Some new platforms lack complete audits, posing a risk of fund theft
Exit difficulty: Some markets have limited liquidity, posing a risk of funds being trapped
Based on experience, it is generally not recommended to go ALL-IN on prediction markets; instead, a diversified small-bet strategy is advisable to hedge against the uncertainty of individual markets. For those eager to participate, it is also recommended that beginners choose compliant platforms with user-friendly experiences—Polymarket is a good starting point.
Besides, the biggest barrier for newcomers is understanding the trading mechanism and technical usage. In prediction markets, placing an order is not as intuitive as simply buying up or down; it requires understanding the probability represented by odds or prices. For example, a price of 0.20 means the market believes there is a 20% chance the event will occur, which requires some skill to convert from traditional odds. It is recommended to spend time reading the platform's beginner guides or popular science articles online to understand binary market profit and loss calculations.
10 Final Thoughts: Tool or Speculative Variant?
Prediction markets are not a new phenomenon. As early as around 2000, many think tanks and economists regarded them as one of the tools for "information integration and social consensus formation." In reality, however, over the past two decades, prediction markets have never achieved large-scale breakthroughs, whether in Web2 scenarios or on-chain applications. On the one hand, compliance thresholds have limited their user base; on the other, their speculative nature has made it difficult to gain broad support from public institutions.
The renewed popularity of Polymarket and Kalshi may be a pursuit of new themes in the capital cycle, or simply a supplement to market gaming tools. In any case, it is far from being a force that "changes market structure."
The real turning point for this sector lies not in product form, but in regulatory boundaries. Until a complete risk control and access system is established, we still need to observe calmly.
