The real turning point of this track lies not in the product form, but in the institutional boundaries.

Author: Biteye Core Contributor Viee

Editor: Biteye Core Contributor Denise

*The full text is approximately 3,800 words, expected reading time is 10 minutes.

Recently, the popularity of the prediction market track has surged. In early October, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, ICE, announced an investment of up to $2 billion in Polymarket, with 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, the trading volume of leading platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket has skyrocketed. Kalshi expects its annualized trading volume to reach $50 billion this year, with its global market share exceeding 60%, surpassing Polymarket for the first time.

As the crypto narrative gradually cools and regulatory scrutiny tightens, why has the prediction market been brought back into focus? Has its product form really undergone a qualitative change? What new generation projects are attempting to walk the old path of "speculative games"?

Here are eight representative project samples that provide insight into the different orientations of this track in product design, compliance games, and financing logic.

01 Polymarket, @Polymarket

Polymarket is currently the largest prediction market platform in the world, having raised $2.279 billion in funding. In October, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, ICE, committed to invest up to $2 billion, bringing Polymarket's pre-investment 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 circle. In response to regulatory pressure, Polymarket acquired the CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange QCEX for $112 million in 2025, thereby obtaining legal operating qualifications in the U.S.

Polymarket is a classic prediction market model where users can use cryptocurrency to bet on the outcomes of various real-world events by purchasing "prediction shares," with each share representing a bet on a specific outcome. When the event result is revealed, users holding shares of the correct outcome can receive corresponding profits. The entire trading process is conducted on-chain, settled in USDC, ensuring both the stability of funds and increased transparency.

02 Kalshi, @Kalshi

Kalshi is the first licensed and compliant comprehensive prediction market exchange in the U.S., having raised $515 million, led by Paradigm and a16z.

Kalshi was founded in 2018 by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The two founders chose a difficult but compliant path, engaging in a long-term game with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), ultimately becoming the first prediction market platform to obtain CFTC regulatory approval.

Since opening the U.S. market in 2021, Kalshi has offered event contracts across various categories, including political elections, economic indicators, and sports events. In 2024, it won the right to launch contracts for the U.S. presidential election through litigation, filling a compliance gap.

03 The Clearing Company, @theclearingco

The Clearing Company is a prediction market launched by former teams from Kalshi and Polymarket, having raised $15 million. CEO Toni Gemayel previously served as the platform growth lead for both Kalshi and Polymarket.

The platform is currently in the preparation and development stage, with a strong focus on simplifying user experience. The team hopes the new product will be as easy for ordinary users to use as Robinhood or Coinbase, and emphasizes designing compliant products. From the concept, these products attempt to find a compromise on both ends, neither straying too far from regulatory requirements nor raising the user understanding threshold too high, but whether they can truly establish an effective market ecosystem remains to be seen.

04 Limitless, @trylimitless

Limitless is a high-frequency prediction market that offers short-term price prediction contracts ranging from minutes to daily, having raised approximately $7 million, with investments from well-known crypto funds 1confirmation and Coinbase Ventures. It was founded in 2023 by CJ Hetherington and others.

Limitless officially launched on the Base mainnet in May 2025 and subsequently expanded to Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum. Its product form is closer to traditional contract exchanges, allowing users to bet "Yes/No" in short-cycle price markets, with a preset expiration time, and the results determined by on-chain oracles at settlement.

From a data performance perspective, Limitless has created numerous ultra-short trading scenarios, with some users utilizing quick and clear results for short-term arbitrage. However, this has also led to criticism within the community: some users pointed out that the platform had launched markets with predetermined outcomes or events that were nearly impossible to occur without charging fees, such as a BTC price market within 1.5 hours. This "certain outcome market" was abused by arbitrageurs to inflate trading volume. The team has responded that they have optimized market generation rules to prevent such situations.

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, and Amber Group.

In terms of progress, Opinion has launched a prediction market on the Monad testnet to gather community feedback and has a partnership background with Binance Labs.

06 Melee, @meleemarkets

Melee is a new prediction market backed by the Variant fund, claiming to create "Viral Markets"—allowing any topic to generate a prediction market and gain traffic through viral spread. It has completed $3.5 million in funding, with investors including Variant and DAO Builders Alliance (DBA). Co-founder and CEO Max previously served as the strategic lead at Ava Labs and has founded a short video influencer brand, providing unique insights into community operations and business strategies.

As of now, Melee is still in the development and pre-launch phase, with no official product launched yet. The official website currently only offers a waiting list registration entry, allowing candidates to join by linking their X accounts. According to official sources, the "viral market" concept promoted by Melee includes three main features: any topic can become a market, creators can monetize in a closed loop, and early participation incentives, positioning itself at the intersection of social and prediction markets, attempting to stimulate widespread participation through a UGC (user-generated market) model.

07 Football.Fun, @footballfun

Football.Fun centers on player predictions, 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 and has completed $2 million in seed round financing, with investors including 6th Man Ventures, Zee Prime, and Sfermion.

08 Trepa, @trepa_io

Trepa focuses on numerical predictions, allowing users to predict specific values for macroeconomic indicators and receive varying degrees of returns based on the accuracy of their predictions. It has raised approximately $420,000, with Colosseum, a fund created by a former growth lead of the Solana Foundation, as the lead investor.

The Trepa team was established in Singapore in 2024, with core members having cross-disciplinary backgrounds. It is currently in the public testing phase, allowing users to choose a prediction topic (mostly macroeconomic or financial data, such as a country's inflation rate or quarterly GDP growth) and submit predictions by dragging a numerical slider or entering specific values. Unlike traditional binary markets that only have "right/wrong" outcomes, Trepa employs a continuous reward mechanism: the closer the predicted value is to the actual result, the higher the reward, allowing for partial returns even if the guess is off.

09 Compliance Risks: The Track's Greatest Uncertainty

Looking at the eight projects above, it is evident that prediction markets have 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 inherently possess characteristics of "speculation + gambling," making them sensitive industries in most jurisdictions. In the U.S., a few projects like Kalshi have obtained compliant licenses, while Polymarket has also attempted to build a legal path through acquisitions. However, many projects still exist in a regulatory gray area.

Moreover, even on-chain platforms inevitably face the following risks:

Market Manipulation: A small amount of capital may influence price direction, undermining information validity.

Oracle Risks: Errors or attacks on data sources can directly lead to settlement errors.

Contract Security: Some new platforms lack complete audits, posing risks of fund theft.

Withdrawal Difficulties: Some markets have limited liquidity, posing risks of fund entrapment.

Based on experience, prediction markets generally do not recommend an ALL-IN heavy position but rather suggest a diversified small-bet strategy to hedge against uncertainties in individual markets. If one is eager to participate, it is also advisable for newcomers to first choose compliant and user-friendly platforms, with Polymarket being a good starting point.

In addition, the biggest barrier for newcomers is understanding the trading mechanisms and technical usage. In prediction markets, placing an order is not as straightforward as simply buying up or down; it requires understanding the odds or prices that represent probabilities. For example, a price of 0.20 means the market believes there is a 20% chance the event will occur, which requires some skill in converting traditional odds. It is recommended to spend time reading the platform's beginner guides or online educational articles to understand the profit and loss calculations of binary markets.

10 In Conclusion: A Tool or a Variant of Speculation?

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." However, the reality is that over the past two decades, whether in Web2 scenarios or on-chain applications, prediction markets have never achieved large-scale breakthroughs. On one hand, compliance thresholds have limited their user base; on the other hand, their speculative nature has made it difficult to gain widespread support from public institutions.

The recent resurgence of Polymarket and Kalshi may be a pursuit of new themes in the capital cycle or merely a supplement to market gaming tools. However, it is far from being a force that "changes 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 access system, we must remain calm and observe.

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