Polymarket and Kalshi trading volume rises to $6bn

Weekly trading volume on prediction market platforms Polymarket and Kalshi increased from $500 million in June 2025 to nearly $6 billion in January 2026, according to Dune.

Growth in prediction market trading volumes

Cryptopolitan links the sharp rise in activity to the downturn in the crypto market.

Since the end of 2024, altcoins have lost around $150 billion, while the price of Bitcoin has fallen by nearly 30% from its October peak.

Shift in trader interest

From cryptocurrencies to event-based betting

As interest in tokens declined, traders began moving toward bets on sports, politics, and other real-world events.

Prediction markets offer binary outcomes and quick results, which attracted former participants from the memecoin segment.

App installation data

Growth of Polymarket and Kalshi

According to Sensor Tower, installs of the Polymarket app increased from 30,000 to more than 400,000 over one year.

Kalshi saw installs rise from 80,000 to 1.3 million.

Declining interest in crypto exchanges

Over the same period, downloads of the Binance crypto exchange app fell by more than 50%.

Infrastructure and trading format

Polymarket and Kalshi use crypto infrastructure to execute trades, while order matching is handled off-chain.

As token speculation declined, prediction markets showed growth by relying on existing infrastructure.

Expansion of the prediction market segment

Launch of services by major players

In December 2025, the crypto exchange Coinbase launched its own prediction market service.

Similar features were also introduced by Gemini and Crypto.com.