1. It Suddenly Started Charging, But You Might Not Have Noticed

You may have seen pages like this:

• “Probability of Trump winning the 2024 election: 51.3%”
• “Probability of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates in March: 68.7%”
• “LPL Spring Finals, BLG championship odds: 1.39”

This is not a gambling website, nor media commentary, but a special entity in the Web3 world—Prediction Market.

In simple terms, it is a mechanism that allows you to "vote" with real money: if you believe something will happen, you buy a "yes" contract; if you believe it won't happen, you buy a "no" contract. Prices fluctuate in real-time, and the final number represents the "collective judgment" of thousands of people who have bet their money.

Polymarket is currently the most popular, actively traded, and frequently cited on-chain prediction platform in the world. It provides a clean webpage for users to trade directly using the USDC stablecoin.

On January 6, 2026, it quietly updated its official website, adding a page called "Transaction Fees" in its documentation, announcing: Effective immediately, markets related to "15-minute cryptocurrency price fluctuations" will charge a fee, up to 3%.

Upon hearing this news, many long-time users reacted with, “Huh? Wasn’t it free before? How did it survive all this time?”

This question hits on a truth often overlooked in the Web3 world: A seemingly cool tech product cannot survive solely on code and ideals.

2. It Became Popular Due to Trends, But Its Survival Depends on Regulation

Polymarket has indeed gained popularity multiple times:

• During the 2022 Qatar World Cup, users bet on "Argentina winning," and the contract price skyrocketed;
• In the 2023 LPL Spring Split, esports fans traded team victories in real-time on the platform;
• For the 2024 U.S. election, daily trading volume peaked at over $2.7 billion, with even The New York Times citing it as a source.

However, what truly determines whether it can continue operating is not these lively events, but two words: regulation.

Founded in 2020, Polymarket quickly gained support from well-known venture capital firms like Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and once planned to expand fully in the U.S. But in January 2022, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an enforcement order that directly halted its operations:

• The binary contracts it offered, such as "Who will win, Real Madrid or Barcelona?" and "Will the Federal Reserve cut interest rates?" are classified as regulated swap transactions, requiring a "Designated Contract Market" (DCM) or "Swap Execution Facility" (SEF) license—which it did not have.

The result? Polymarket was fined $1.4 million and closed all compliance-risk markets for U.S. users. On the surface, it seemed like a withdrawal, but in reality, it was a strategic contraction: moving its operations out of the U.S., transitioning to on-chain settlement, while still serving a global audience—including U.S. users.

Interestingly, exiting the U.S. market actually made it more "mainstream."

During the 2024 election, it became an "unofficial dashboard" for global observers tracking public opinion changes; media checked it before writing articles, traders referenced it for modeling, and researchers analyzed public sentiment using its API.

The real turning point came in November 2025: the CFTC officially approved its DCM application. This meant— it was no longer an "innovative project skirting regulations," but had received a "formal badge" from the U.S. financial regulatory system.

This new fee structure is not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but the first action taken after obtaining that badge.

3. It Was Free for Six Years, Not Because It Had No Money to Make, But Because It Was Waiting for a "Safe Opportunity to Profit"

You might not know: the vast majority of prediction markets have long been charging fees—common rates range from 0.5% to 3%. But since its launch in 2020, Polymarket has charged zero fees for all users and all markets.

This sparked a lot of speculation: Is it surviving on venture capital? Selling data? Or is there a big backer supporting it?

The answer is more pragmatic: It was betting on a time window.

The value of a prediction market lies not in how much is earned from a single transaction, but in whether there are enough people participating frequently enough to form real, stable, and credible price signals. And "zero fees" is the most direct and effective way to attract users.

Over six years, it successfully achieved three things:

• It became the de facto "default pricing center" for high-profile events in politics, sports, and crypto;
• Its price data has been repeatedly cited by Bloomberg terminals, academic papers, and hedge fund strategies, forming a factual standard;
• It accumulated a complete dataset of probabilities across cycles, events, and regions over several years—this is a moat that no new platform can buy, no matter how much they spend.

In other words, it exchanged the money it could have collected for something more valuable: liquidity, influence, and data assets.

The fee introduced on January 6, 2026, is a natural result of this long-term strategy:

• It only targets the "15-minute cryptocurrency price fluctuations" category, which is high-frequency, short-term, and easily influenced by bots;
• The fee rate fluctuates dynamically: the closer the price is to 50% (harder to judge), the higher the fee; the closer it is to 0% or 100% (more certain), the lower the fee, even potentially zero;
• All fees do not go into the platform's pocket but are fully returned daily in USDC to market makers (those providing buy and sell quotes);
• The goal is very practical: to incentivize more people to place orders, narrow the bid-ask spread, and enable quick transactions even during sharp price drops or surges.

Some say it is to combat high-frequency trading bots, others believe it is to filter out false trades, and some point out that—this is essentially a stress test: within the regulatory framework, verifying whether the fee mechanism can improve market quality without harming user experience.

It hasn't changed into a "business," but it can finally "seriously do business."

4. Small Cut, Big Space; Just Getting Started, Already Under Pressure

Don’t underestimate this "fee limited to one category."

According to data analysis firm Gate Research, organized on the Dune platform:

• Within two weeks of launching the fee, Polymarket has accumulated approximately $2.19 million in fees;
• At the current pace, weekly revenue is about $730,000, which could statically project to an annualized $38 million.

This is just one subcategory of "15-minute cryptocurrency price fluctuations." Polymarket currently covers areas including:

• U.S. and global political elections
• Top sports events like the World Cup, NBA, and LPL
• Macroeconomic events like Federal Reserve meetings and CPI releases
• Long-term topics like cryptocurrency, real estate, and AI technology advancements

The profit potential is far from fully realized.

But the flip side is: Compliance is never a one-time deal.

Obtaining the CFTC's DCM license only means it has passed the federal level "exam." However, the U.S. is a federal system, and each state has the authority to establish its own financial and gambling regulations. In mid-January 2026, the Tennessee sports betting regulatory agency issued a cease-and-desist order to Polymarket and similar platforms like Kalshi, explicitly requiring:

“Immediately cease offering sports event contracts to residents of this state, or face civil penalties and even criminal charges.”

Similar challenges are prevalent globally:

• The Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) has explicitly listed event contracts as prohibited business;
• The UK's FCA requires licensing + high collateral + strict anti-money laundering reviews;
• All prediction markets within China are inaccessible, and policies explicitly prohibit them.

Therefore, Polymarket's next step is not rapid expansion, but continuous adaptation:

• Establishing localized compliance entities in different jurisdictions;
• Distinguishing the product design boundaries between "financial instruments" and "entertainment activities";
• Exploring partnerships with traditional financial institutions to convert probability data into risk control model inputs.

Can it become a "evergreen tree" in the Web3 world? The answer lies not in how advanced the technology is, but in whether it can find a sustainable middle path among regulation, users, and business.

Prediction markets provide us with a rare perspective: when the world is full of uncertainty, we can at least know—

At this moment, how many people around the world are willing to bet real money on "this thing will happen."

This consensus may not be correct, but it is real enough. And Polymarket's recent fee is not the end of the story, but the true beginning of its growth as a real service.

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