Prediction Market Volume Holds at $5.25B as Kalshi Nears 50% Market Share
Prediction markets look like consolidating, posting $5.25 billion throughout all tracked platforms for the week ending Feb. 22. The weekly quantity was primarily flat in opposition to the $5.33 billion posted the prior week, and it marks the second consecutive week with no significant swing in both course after the Super Bowl unwind.
But a top-line that hardly strikes can nonetheless inform a narrative, and the internals this week are extra fascinating than the floor suggests. Kalshi’s quantity jumped 6.7% week-over-week, pushing its market share from 45.5% to 49.3% as Polymarket’s share stayed comparatively flat at 34.6%. Opinion logged a 3rd straight week of double-digit share declines. And on the person aspect, Polymarket’s energetic base dropped almost 18% even as the platform’s transaction rely climbed.
According to DeFi Rate’s prediction market tracker, Kalshi and Polymarket mixed for $4.41 billion this week — up from $4.31 billion the week prior as the principle prediction market duo reinforces its baseline with out NFL or one other main buying and selling catalyst.
Platform breakdown: Week of Feb. 16-22
The full week-over-week comparability for the weeks ending Feb. 15 and Feb. 22 proceed the development of platforms exterior of Kalshi and Polymarket exhibiting extra volatility from one week to the following. Meanwhile, Kalshi’s $2.59 billion and Polymarket’s $1.83 billion weekly buying and selling quantity fall inside anticipated ranges.
| Platform | Feb 9–15 | Feb 16–22 | WoW change | Mkt share (2/16–22) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kalshi | $2.43B | $2.59B | +6.7% | 49.3% |
| Polymarket | $1.88B | $1.82B | −3.2% | 34.6% |
| Opinion | $709.7M | $603.8M | −14.9% | 11.5% |
| predict.enjoyable | $184.7M | $220.3M | +19.3% | 4.2% |
| Other* | $126.4M | $12.6M | — | 0.2% |
| Overtime.io | $3.9M | $4.5M | +14.4% | 0.1% |
| Total | $5.33B | $5.25B | −1.4% | 100% |
*”Other” on the Dune dashboard teams Limitless, Myriad, and ForecastEx for UX causes, as famous by Dune. The prior week tracked Limitless ($109.4M) and Myriad ($17.0M) as separate line objects. The sharp obvious decline in “Other” displays this grouping change slightly than a quantity collapse at these platforms. Whether Limitless maintained its +58.7% acquire from the prior week isn’t determinable from present knowledge.
The week bolstered the two-tier construction of the market. Kalshi and Polymarket collectively accounted for 83.9% of all tracked quantity, up from 80.8% the prior week. That focus has ticked upward for 3 consecutive weeks, as Opinion contracts and the smaller platforms stay too small to meaningfully offset the shift.
Kalshi sustains buying and selling quantity post-Super Bowl
Kalshi’s $2.59 billion in weekly quantity through the second week after the Super Bowl isn’t what you’d anticipate from a platform whose prime quantity driver simply went darkish. Kalshi was up 6.7% WoW, its second consecutive constructive week, and crossed 49% market share for the primary time within the present reporting interval.
Looking at the previous six weeks of notional quantity knowledge, Kalshi is settling in as constant market chief with Polymarket a transparent No. 2, with sports activities quantity the principle differentiator as we’ve already established.
The class breakdown explains what’s filling the post-NFL hole. Sports quantity got here in at $2.21 billion, up from $1.996 billion the prior week: a 10.9% enhance with none soccer on the schedule. The primary drivers embrace NBA, NCAAB and a few Olympic occasions, notably the USA-Canada hockey closing. The NBA common season resumed Thursday after the All-Star break, with convention standings tightening as the playoff image comes into focus, and school basketball markets deepening as Selection Sunday (March 15) strikes into view.
Neither the NBA nor the NCAA match individually matches the Super Bowl as a single-event quantity catalyst, however collectively they signify weeks of sustained, high-engagement buying and selling slightly than a one-day spike. Kalshi’s sports activities focus deepened once more this week, from 82.2% to 85.4% of complete platform quantity. The platform isn’t diversifying away from sports activities, although politics will probably develop in class share as we get nearer to the midterms. Here are Kalshi’s prime 5 quantity markets for the trailing seven days, in response to our monitoring.
The non-sports classes, whereas rising in isolation, nonetheless pale compared to the sports activities engine. Crypto was the second-largest class at $206.4M (8.0% of platform quantity), adopted by politics at $55.0M (2.1%) and mentions at $25.6M (1.0%). Climate and climate confirmed up meaningfully at $22.4M, and leisure dropped to $15.3M — down from $22.7M the prior week, persevering with the post-Super Bowl normalization.
Interesting to notice that Kalshi’s crypto class has now grown in every of the previous two weeks (+22% final week, +8.3% this week). Economics and financials are current however skinny. The non-sports diversification is actual, however at 14.6% of complete quantity, it’s nonetheless a footnote to the sports activities story. Vitalik Buterin‘s considerations, which we covered last week, that prediction markets are over-converging towards sports activities and short-term crypto hypothesis at the expense of sturdy monetary utility isn’t getting any much less related as you watch these class splits week by week.
Polymarket: Resilient on quantity as weekly customers decline
Polymarket held up moderately nicely this week on quantity — down 3.2% to $1.82 billion — however the person quantity that got here again from Dune is difficult to disregard. Polymarket’s 254,730 weekly energetic customers was down from 309,991 the prior week, representing a drop of almost 18% in a single week.
That’s a big person pullback on a smaller quantity dip. The knowledge raises some questions: Polymarket processed 22.7 million transactions final week with 17.8% fewer customers, that means the remaining base traded extra ceaselessly and certain in bigger common commerce sizes. Whether that’s wholesome consolidation round engaged energy customers or early-stage retail churn stays to be seen within the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the class break up continues to distinguish Polymarket from Kalshi in important methods. Sports remained the highest class at $721.2M (39.6% of platform quantity), however crypto and politics collectively contributed one other $940.6M, with Trump-specific markets tracked as a discrete class at $54.4M. Polymarket’s prime three classes span genuinely totally different domains and totally different person motivations, which serves as a structural buffer when any single class cools.
Just a few class strikes price noting. Culture jumped to $46.0M, almost doubling from final week’s $25.3M. Economy confirmed up as a discrete class at $24.2M as earnings buying and selling fell sharply to $391K from final week’s $5.4M. The cross-platform convergence on the March Fed resolution can also be price flagging: each Kalshi (96%) and Polymarket (96%) are pricing no rate cut at the March meeting, a near-identical learn on a macro occasion throughout independently operated markets, according to CME FedWatch pricing above 97% maintain likelihood. It’s a transparent illustration of what the Fed study we covered last week was pointing at.
The extra notable Polymarket information this week didn’t come from the amount knowledge. The platform launched a public API and permissionless liquidity infrastructure, a structural shift DeFi Rate coated individually. The long-term learn on that transfer: Polymarket US is constructing towards a market-maker ecosystem and programmatic buying and selling that might change who generates quantity on the platform and the way. The person rely might matter much less if institutional and API-driven movement scales.
Kalshi vs. Polymarket: The break up deepens
The sports activities vs. non-sports divide between these two platforms has been a recurring theme in our weekly protection, and this week sharpened it additional.
| Segment | Kalshi | Polymarket | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sports | $2.21B (85.4% of Kalshi) | $721.2M (39.6% of Poly) | $2.93B |
| Non-sports | $377.6M (14.6%) | $1.10B (60.4%) | $1.48B |
In sports activities markets, Kalshi’s 3:1 lead from final week widened barely. In non-sports, Polymarket’s lead held close to the identical ratio. Two platforms at roughly related total scale proceed to serve essentially totally different however overlapping market features.
The divergence is intentional on each side. Kalshi’s Giannis partnership and Robinhood distribution infrastructure are explicitly sports-facing. Polymarket’s API buildout and deep crypto/politics liquidity are explicitly not. The query that may outline the following six months isn’t which mannequin wins as each are clearly working, however which mannequin is healthier insulated when the sports activities calendar thins out.
Opinion’s decline continues
Opinion logged a 3rd straight week of significant quantity decline coming in at $603.8M, down 14.9% from $709.7M. The platform has now shed 63.6% of its quantity since its Jan. 19 peak of $1.95 billion throughout 4 consecutive down weeks.
We printed a deep dive on Opinion’s data this week, and the brand new weekly knowledge reinforces that evaluation. The platform’s person rely fell to 12,739, down 29.6% from 18,098 the prior week. Its per-user quantity determine climbed once more: at $603.8M throughout 12,739 customers, that’s roughly $47,400 per person per week, up from ~$39,200 the week earlier than. The person base is contracting quicker than the amount, which suggests the remaining merchants have gotten much more concentrated.
The transaction rely provides additional context. Opinion processed 227,847 transactions this week, producing $603.8M in quantity, an implied common commerce measurement of roughly $2,650 per transaction. Polymarket’s 22.7 million transactions generated $1.82 billion, for a median of roughly $80 per transaction. The hole, now roughly 33:1, has not narrowed meaningfully by means of Opinion’s progress or its subsequent decline. And it continues to level to inflated, synthetic buying and selling volumes as we famous in our separate Opinion platform evaluation.
Opinion stays the third-largest change in tracked quantity by a large margin. It has actual infrastructure, credible backers in Hack VC and Jump Crypto, and market classes that fill real gaps for non-US merchants exterior the Kalshi/Polymarket duopoly. But the structural questions documented in our deep dive haven’t resolved themselves. Until the platform’s volume-to-transaction ratio converges towards trade norms, or an impartial evaluation of BNB Chain exercise addresses the wash buying and selling query, Opinion’s headline figures warrant the identical cautious studying they all the time have.
Transactions and customers: The full image
The transaction rely divergence between Polymarket and Opinion this week is stark. Polymarket processed 22.7 million transactions — 100x greater than Opinion’s 227,847 — whereas producing roughly 3x the amount.
Kalshi’s 17.6 million transactions had been almost neck and neck with Polymarket’s, reflecting the platform’s high-frequency sports activities buying and selling infrastructure. Together, Kalshi and Polymarket accounted for 98.2% of all tracked transactions this week.
The 20.3% drop in complete tracked customers (excluding Kalshi), from 362,704 to 289,144 is the week’s most notable macro sign on the demand aspect. Whether that is post-Super Bowl seasonality working by means of the system or one thing extra structural can be clearer within the coming weeks. Retail person attrition after peak occasion cycles is a recognized sample in sports activities betting; the query for prediction markets is how deep the drop-off goes earlier than the following catalyst, which is developing in March.
What comes subsequent?
The sports activities calendar is about to get busy once more. The NBA resumed Thursday after the All-Star break, and Selection Sunday is March 15 — simply three weeks out. Once the bracket drops, March Madness turns into Kalshi’s greatest quantity occasion exterior the NFL season (at least till main elections). Last yr’s Robinhood partnership drove over $200 million in match quantity. With a broader distribution footprint and a yr of platform maturity, that ceiling is way greater now. The subsequent 4 weeks are the true check of whether or not Kalshi’s post-Super Bowl ground holds: if the $2.4–2.6B weekly run price sustains by means of mid-March, it suggests the retail base is genuinely sticky and never purely event-driven.
For Polymarket, the API launch and permissionless liquidity infrastructure matter greater than any single week’s numbers. If programmatic buying and selling and market-maker participation scale, quantity era might decouple from person rely in methods the weekly energetic person metric doesn’t but seize.
Opinion’s trajectory stays an open query. Three consecutive weeks of double-digit decline following 4 weeks of prior losses is a sustained contraction from the January peak. Whether it stabilizes, continues towards the $400–500M vary, or reverses relies upon largely on the $OPN token timeline and what that does to factors farming incentives — neither of which is seen within the present knowledge.
The macro image hasn’t modified: an trade that grew 13x in six months doesn’t must panic over just a few flat weeks. But as the Super Bowl cycle absolutely clears, the following month will inform us what this market really seems to be like with out the NFL beneath it.
Data sourced from DeFi Rate’s prediction market tracker and Dune Data Dashboards. Weekly knowledge displays the calendar week of Feb. 16-22 except in any other case famous. Note: For UX causes, initiatives together with Limitless, Myriad, and ForecastEx are grouped collectively beneath “Other” on the Dune dashboard.
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