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Author: Viee, Core Contributor of Biteye
Recently, the popularity of the prediction market sector has surged. At the beginning of October, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, ICE, announced an investment of up to $2 billion in Polymarket, resulting in a post-investment valuation of approximately $9 billion; a few days later, the U.S. compliant prediction market Kalshi also completed a $300 million financing round, raising its valuation to $5 billion.
With massive financing, leading platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen a surge in trading volume. Kalshi expects its annualized trading volume to reach $50 billion this year, and its global market share has exceeded 60%, surpassing Polymarket for the first time.
As the crypto narrative gradually cools and regulatory pressures tighten, why is the prediction market being raised again? Has its product form really undergone a qualitative change? What new generation projects are trying to break away from the old path of “speculative games”?
The following are 8 representative project samples, from which one can gain insight into the different orientations in product design, compliance games, and financing logic in this sector.
- Polymarket @Polymarket
Polymarket is currently the largest prediction market platform in the world, having raised a massive $2.279 billion in funding. In October, ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, committed to investing up to $2 billion in it, bringing Polymarket's pre-money valuation to $9 billion.
Polymarket was founded by Shayne Coplan in 2020. Shayne participated in Ethereum ICO investments during high school and is regarded as a “prodigy” in the crypto space. In response to regulatory pressures, Polymarket acquired the CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange QCEX in 2025 for $112 million, thereby gaining legal operating status in the U.S. Polymarket is a classic prediction market where users can bet on the outcomes of various real-world events using cryptocurrency, participating in the market by purchasing “prediction shares,” with each share representing a bet on a specific outcome. When the event outcome is revealed, users holding shares for the correct outcome will receive corresponding rewards. The entire trading process is conducted on-chain, settled in USDC, ensuring both the stability of funds and increased transparency.
- Kalshi @Kalshi
Kalshi is the first licensed and compliant comprehensive prediction market exchange in the United States, having raised $515 million in financing, led by Paradigm and a16z.
Kalshi was founded in 2018 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara. The two founders chose a difficult but compliant path, engaging in a long game with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), ultimately becoming the first prediction market platform to receive regulatory approval from the CFTC.
Since Kalshi opened the U.S. market in 2021, it has offered event contracts in various categories including political elections, economic indicators, and sports events. In 2024, it won the qualification to launch U.S. presidential election contracts through litigation, filling a compliance gap.
- The Clearing Company @theclearingco
The Clearing Company is a prediction market launched by the former teams of Kalshi and Polymarket, which has raised $15 million in funding. CEO Toni Gemayel has previously served as the head of platform growth at both Kalshi and Polymarket.
The platform is currently in the preparation and development stage, and the team is very focused on simplifying the user experience. They hope the new product will be as simple for ordinary users as using Robinhood or Coinbase, while also emphasizing the design of compliant products. From the conceptual perspective, these types of products attempt to find a compromise on both ends, neither deviating too much from regulatory requirements nor striving to lower the user understanding threshold. However, whether it can truly establish an effective market ecosystem remains to be seen.
- Limitless @trylimitless
Limitless is a high-frequency prediction market that offers short-term price prediction contracts ranging from minute-level to daily. It has raised approximately $7 million in funding, invested by renowned crypto funds 1confirmation and Coinbase Ventures, and was founded by CJ Hetherington and others in 2023.
Limitless will officially launch on the Base mainnet in May 2025, and will subsequently expand to Layer 2 solutions such as Arbitrum. The product form is closer to traditional contract exchanges, allowing users to bet “Yes/No” in short-term price markets, set an expiration time, and have the outcome determined by an on-chain oracle at settlement.
From the data performance perspective, Limitless has created a large number of ultra-short-term trading scenarios, with some users taking advantage of quick and clear results for short-term arbitrage. However, this has led to criticism within the community: some users pointed out that the platform once launched markets where the outcome was already determined or almost impossible to occur, such as the BTC price market within 1.5 hours, which has been abused by arbitrageurs to amplify trading volume. The team has currently responded that they have optimized the market generation rules to prevent such situations.
- Opinion @opinionlabsxyz
Opinion Labs (O.LAB) has currently secured $5 million in funding, led by YZi Labs, with other investors including Echo, Animoca Ventures, Manifold Trading, Amber Group, and others.
Currently, in terms of progress, Opinion has launched a prediction market on the Monad testnet to collect community feedback and has a collaborative background with Binance Labs.
- Melee @meleemarkets
Melee is a new prediction market backed by Variant Fund, claiming to create “Viral Markets”—where any topic can generate a prediction market and attract traffic through viral dissemination. It has currently completed a $3.5 million funding round, with investors including Variant and DAO Builders Alliance (DBA). Co-founder and CEO Max previously served as the head of strategy at Ava Labs and has founded a short video influencer brand, possessing unique insights into community operations and business strategies.
As of now, Melee is still in the development and preheating stage, and has not officially launched its product. The official website currently only provides an entry for the waiting list registration, which can be joined by binding an X account. According to official sources, the “viral market” concept advocated by Melee includes three major features: any topic can become a market, a monetization closed loop for creators, and early participant incentives, positioning itself at the intersection of social and prediction markets, aiming to stimulate widespread participation through the UGC (User Generated Content) model.
- Football.Fun @footballdotfun
Football.Fun revolves around a core mechanism of player predictions, tokenizing real professional players into tradable “shares.” Users can hold player cards and earn points and settlement rewards based on their performance in real matches. The founder, Adam, is a member of the WolvesDAO community and has completed a $2 million seed round of funding, with investors including 6th Man Ventures, Zee Prime, Sfermion, and others.
- Trepa @trepa_io
Trepa focuses on numerical predictions, allowing users to make forecasts on specific values such as macroeconomic indicators and receive varying degrees of returns based on the size of the error. It has currently completed approximately $420,000 in funding, with the lead investor being Colosseum, a fund created by the former head of growth at the Solana Foundation.
The Trepa team was established in Singapore in 2024, with core members having cross-disciplinary backgrounds. It is currently in the public testing phase, where users can select a prediction topic (mostly macroeconomic or financial data, such as inflation rates of a certain country, GDP growth rates for a certain quarter, etc.), and then submit their predictions by dragging a numerical slider or entering specific values. Unlike traditional binary markets that only have “right/wrong” options, Trepa adopts a continuous reward mechanism: the closer the predicted value is to the actual result, the higher the reward, and even if there is a deviation in the guess, partial returns can still be obtained.
Compliance risk, the biggest uncertainty in the race track
Looking at the eight projects mentioned above, it can be observed that the prediction market has shown significant differentiation in product design and technical implementation. However, regardless of the model, the common challenge remains how regulations define its legal attributes.
Prediction markets inherently possess characteristics of “speculation + gambling” and are considered a sensitive industry in most jurisdictions. In the United States, a few projects like Kalshi have obtained compliance licenses, while Polymarket is also attempting to establish a legal pathway through acquisitions. However, many more projects still exist in a regulatory gray area.
In addition, even on-chain platforms inevitably face the following risks:
Market manipulation: A small amount of funds may affect price direction, undermining the validity of information.
Oracle risks: Errors in data sources or attacks can directly lead to settlement errors.
Contract Security: Some new platforms have not undergone complete audits, posing a risk of fund theft.
Exit difficulty: Limited liquidity in some markets, there is a risk of capital being stuck.
Based on experience, it is generally not recommended to go ALL-IN heavy in the market, but rather to adopt a diversified small amount multi-bet strategy to hedge against the uncertainties of a single market. If you really want to participate, it is also advised for beginners to choose compliant and user-friendly platforms, and Polymarket is a good starting point.
In addition, the biggest barrier for newcomers is understanding the trading mechanisms and the use of technology. In prediction markets, placing an order is not as straightforward as simply betting on an increase or decrease; it requires understanding the probabilities represented by the odds or prices. For example, a price of 0.20 means the market believes there is a 20% chance that an event will occur, which requires some skill in converting traditional odds. It is recommended to spend time reading the platform's beginner's guide or online educational articles to understand the profit and loss calculations in binary markets.
Final Note: Is it a tool or a speculative variant?
Prediction markets are not a new phenomenon. As early as around the year 2000, many think tanks and economists regarded them as one of the tools for “information integration and social consensus formation.” However, the reality is that, over the past two decades, prediction markets have not been able to achieve large-scale breakthroughs, whether in Web2 scenarios or on-chain applications. On one hand, compliance thresholds have limited their user base, and on the other hand, their speculative nature makes 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 it could just be a supplement to market gaming tools. However, it is far from being a force that can be called “changing market structure.”
The real turning point of this track lies not in the product form, but in the institutional boundaries. Before establishing a complete risk control and admission system, we still need to remain calm and observe.
