Original Article Title: "Betting on the Real World: What Business Are These 8 Prediction Markets In?"

Original Article Author: Viee, Biteye Core Contributor

Recently, the prediction market track has seen a surge in popularity. In early October, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, ICE, announced a staggering $20 billion investment in Polymarket, with a post-investment valuation of around $90 billion; a few days later, the US-compliant prediction market Kalshi also completed a $3 billion funding round, pushing its valuation to $50 billion.

With massive funding, top platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have experienced a sharp increase in trading volume, with Kalshi expected to reach an annualized transaction volume of $500 billion this year, commanding over 60% of the global market share, surpassing Polymarket for the first time.

In the current environment of cooling crypto narratives and tightening regulatory scrutiny, why has the prediction market been brought up again? Has its product form truly undergone a qualitative change? And what new generation projects are trying to break away from the old path of the "speculative game"?

Here are 8 representative project samples, from which one can glimpse the different orientations of this track in terms of product design, compliance strategy, and funding logic.

01 Ploymarket, @Ploymarket

Polymarket is currently the world's largest prediction market platform, receiving a massive $22.79 billion in funding. In October, with a commitment from ICE, the parent company of NYSE, to invest up to $20 billion, Polymarket's pre-investment valuation reached $90 billion.

Polymarket was founded by Shayne Coplan in 2020. Shayne was involved in Ethereum ICO investments during high school and is considered a "prodigy" in the crypto community. Facing regulatory pressure, in 2025, Polymarket acquired the derivatives exchange QCEX, which holds a CFTC license, for $112 million, gaining legal operating qualifications in the US.

Polymarket follows the classic gameplay of prediction markets, where users can use cryptocurrency to bet on various real-world event outcomes by purchasing "prediction shares" to participate in the market, with each share representing a bet on a specific outcome. When the event outcome is revealed, users holding shares of the correct outcome can receive corresponding rewards. The entire transaction process takes place on-chain, using USDC for settlement, ensuring fund stability and increasing transparency.

02 Kalshi, @Kalshi

Kalshi is the first CFTC-regulated comprehensive prediction market exchange in the United States, having raised $515 million, with funding led by Paradigm and a16z.

Kalshi was founded by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara in 2018 at MIT. The two founders chose a challenging but compliant path, engaging in a long battle with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and eventually becoming the first prediction market platform to obtain CFTC regulatory approval.

Since 2021, Kalshi has been open to the U.S. market, offering various event contracts such as political elections, economic indicators, and sports events. Through litigation, it secured eligibility to launch a contract on the U.S. presidential election in 2024, filling a compliance gap.

03 The Clearing Company, @theclearingco

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

The platform is currently in the preparation and development stage, with a strong focus on simplifying the user experience. The team aims for the new product to be as easy for the average user to use as Robinhood or Coinbase, while also emphasizing the design of a compliant product. In concept, such products attempt to find a balance at both ends, not straying too far from regulatory requirements and yet striving to lower the user understanding threshold. However, 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 intraday, having raised a total of around $7 million. It is backed by well-known crypto funds 1confirmation and Coinbase Ventures and was founded by CJ Hetherington and others in 2023.

In May 2025, Limitless officially launched on the Base mainnet, later expanding to Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum. The product is more akin to traditional derivatives exchanges where users can bet "Yes/No" in short-term price markets, set a predefined expiry time, and have the result determined by an on-chain oracle at settlement.

From a data perspective, Limitless has created many scenarios for ultra-short-term trading, with some users taking advantage of the fast and clear results for scalping. However, this has also led to criticism within the community: some users have pointed out that the platform has listed markets with predetermined outcomes or events that are almost impossible, such as a BTC price market within 1.5 hours, with no transaction fees. These "revealed outcome markets" have been exploited by arbitrageurs to inflate trading volume. The team has responded by stating that they have optimized the market creation rules to prevent such situations.

05 Opinion, @opinionlabsxyz

Opinion Labs (O.LAB) has recently raised $5 million in funding, led by YZi Labs, with other investors including Echo, Animoca Ventures, Manifold Trading, Amber Group, among others.

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

06 Melee, @meleemarkets

Melee is a cutting-edge prediction market backed by Variant Fund, claiming to create "Viral Markets" where any topic can spawn a prediction market and attract traffic through viral spread. It has raised $3.5 million in funding, with investors including Variant and DAO Builders Alliance (DBA). Co-founder and CEO Max, former Head of Strategy at Ava Labs and creator of a short video influencer brand, brings unique insights into community operations and business strategy.

As of now, Melee is still in the development and pre-launch stage, with no official product release yet. The website currently offers a waitlist registration portal, where users can join the queue by linking their X account. According to official statements, the "viral market" concept advocated by Melee includes three main features: any topic can become a market, creator monetization loop, and early participation incentives. Positioned at the intersection of social and prediction markets, Melee aims to stimulate broad participation through a UGC (user-generated market) model.

07 Football.Fun, @footballfun

Football.Fun revolves around player prediction, tokenizing real-world professional players into tradable "shares." Users can hold player cards and earn points and settlement rewards based on their performance in actual matches. Founder Adam is a WolvesDAO community member, and the platform has raised $2 million in seed funding from investors such as 6th Man Ventures, Zee Prime, Sfermion, among others.

08 Trepa, @trepa_io

Trepa focuses on numerical prediction, allowing users to make predictions on specific numerical values such as macroeconomic indicators, and receive varying levels of rewards based on the accuracy of their predictions. It has currently raised approximately $420,000 in funding, with lead investor Colosseum being a fund created by the former Growth Lead of the Solana Foundation.

The Trepa team was established in Singapore in 2024, with core members having diverse backgrounds. The platform is currently in the public testing phase, where users can select a prediction topic (mostly related to macroeconomics or financial data, such as a country's inflation rate or quarterly GDP growth rate), and then submit their predictions by adjusting a numerical slider or entering a specific value. Unlike traditional binary markets with only "right/wrong" outcomes, Trepa utilizes a continuous reward mechanism: the closer the prediction is to the actual result, the higher the reward, allowing users to earn partial rewards even if their guess is slightly off.

09 Compliance Risk, the Biggest Uncertainty in the Field

Looking across the previous eight projects, we can see that prediction markets have shown significant differentiation in product design and technological implementation. However, regardless of the model, the common challenge remains how regulations define their legal status.

Prediction markets inherently exhibit characteristics of "speculation + gambling," making them a sensitive industry in most legal jurisdictions. In the United States, a few projects like Kalshi have obtained compliance licenses, and Polymarket has also attempted to establish a legal pathway through acquisitions. However, many more projects still operate in a regulatory gray area.

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

· Market Manipulation: A small amount of capital can influence price direction and disrupt information efficiency

· Oracle Risk: Data sources may be incorrect or attacked, leading to settlement errors

· Contract Security: Some new platforms lack comprehensive audits, posing risks of fund theft

· Exit Liquidity: Some markets have limited liquidity, posing risks of fund lock-up

Based on experience, it is generally not advised to go all-in on a single prediction market but to adopt a strategy of diversified small bets to hedge against uncertainty in individual markets. If you are keen to participate, it is also recommended for beginners to start with a compliant and user-friendly platform, with Polymarket being a good starting point.

Furthermore, the biggest hurdle for beginners to participate is understanding the trading mechanism and technology usage. In prediction markets, placing orders is not as straightforward as simply betting on price movements; it requires understanding the probability represented by odds or prices. For example, a price of 0.20 implies that the market believes there is a 20% probability of an event occurring, which requires some skill to convert to traditional odds. It is advisable to spend time reading the platform's beginner guides or online educational articles to understand the profit and loss calculation in binary markets.

10 Final Thoughts: A Tool or a Speculative Derivative?

Prediction markets are not a new phenomenon. As early as around the year 2000, many think tanks and economists viewed them as a tool for "information aggregation and social consensus formation." However, the reality is that over the past two decades, whether in the Web2 scenario or on-chain applications, prediction markets have not been able to achieve large-scale breakthroughs. On the one hand, compliance barriers have limited their user base, and 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 part of a capital cycle's pursuit of new themes, or it may simply be a complement to market game tools. However, in any case, it is far from being a force that "changes market structure."

The true turning point of this track is not in the product form but in institutional boundaries. Before establishing a complete risk management and access system, we still need to keep a watchful eye.

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