Betting on the Real World: What Business Are These 8 Prediction Markets In?
Original Title: "Betting on the Real World: What Business Are These 8 Prediction Markets In?"
Original Author: Viee, Biteye Core Contributor
Recently, the prediction market track has seen a surge in popularity. In early October, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, announced a high-profile investment of up to $2 billion in Polymarket, with a post-investment valuation of around $9 billion; a few days later, the U.S. regulatory-compliant prediction market Kalshi also completed a $300 million financing, pushing its valuation to $5 billion.
With massive funding, top platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have experienced a significant increase in trading volume. Kalshi is expected to reach an annualized trading volume of $50 billion this year, with a global market share exceeding 60%, surpassing Polymarket for the first time.
Amid the cooling of the crypto narrative and the tightening regulatory environment, 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"?
Below are 8 representative project samples, from which one can catch a glimpse of the different orientations of this track in terms of product design, regulatory game, and financing logic.
01 Polymarket, @Polymarket
Polymarket is currently the world's largest prediction market platform, with a massive funding of $22.79 billion. In October, backed by ICE, it was pledged an investment of up to $20 billion, bringing Polymarket's pre-investment valuation to $90 billion.
Founded by Shayne Coplan in 2020, Polymarket is led by a "prodigy" figure in the crypto community who participated in Ethereum's ICO investment during high school. Facing regulatory pressure, Polymarket acquired the derivatives exchange QCEX, holding a CFTC license, for $112 million in 2025, thus gaining legal operational status in the U.S.
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. Each share represents a bet on a particular outcome. When the event result is revealed, users holding shares of the correct outcome receive corresponding profits. The entire transaction process takes place on-chain, settling in USDC, ensuring fund stability and enhancing transparency.
02 Kalshi, @Kalshi
Kalshi is the first licensed and compliant comprehensive prediction market exchange in the United States, having raised $515 million in funding led by Paradigm and a16z.
Kalshi was founded in 2018 at MIT by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara. The two founders chose the 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 receive 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 in funding. 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 designing a compliant product. Conceptually, such products attempt to find a balance at both ends, not straying too far from regulatory requirements and trying to lower the user's 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 was founded by CJ Hetherington and others in 2023, with investments from well-known crypto funds 1confirmation and Coinbase Ventures.
In May 2025, Limitless officially launched on the Base mainnet, later expanding to Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum. Its product form is closer to traditional derivatives exchanges, allowing users to bet on "Yes/No" in short-term price markets with preset expiration times. The settlement is determined by an on-chain oracle at the end.
From a data perspective, Limitless has created numerous scenarios of ultra-short-term trading, with some users taking advantage of the fast and clear results for arbitrage. However, it is also for this reason that criticism has emerged within the community: some users have pointed out that the platform has previously launched markets with predetermined outcomes or events that are almost impossible, such as a market for the price of BTC within 1.5 hours, and did not charge any fees. This "revealed outcome market" was exploited by arbitrageurs to inflate trading volume. The current team has responded by stating that they have optimized the market generation 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 collect community feedback and has a collaborative background with Binance Labs.
06 Melee, @meleemarkets
Melee, supported by Variant Fund, is a cutting-edge prediction market aiming to create "Viral Markets" — where any topic can generate a prediction market and attract traffic through viral propagation. It has raised $3.5 million in funding, with investors being Variant and DAO Builders Alliance (DBA). Co-founder and CEO Max, who previously served as Head of Strategy at Ava Labs and founded 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 phase, with no official product release yet. The website currently only provides a waitlist registration portal, where users can join the queue by connecting their X account. According to official sources, Melee's concept of a "viral market" includes three key 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 widespread participation through a User-Generated Content (UGC) model.
07 Football.Fun, @footballfun
Football.Fun revolves around player prediction as its core mechanism, 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 has already secured $2 million in seed funding, with investors including 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 degrees of rewards based on the prediction error. It has raised approximately $420,000 to date, with Colosseum as the lead investor, a fund created by the former growth lead of the Solana Foundation.
Founded in Singapore in 2024, the Trepa team has a diverse background. The platform is currently in public beta, where users can choose a prediction topic (mostly related to macroeconomics or financial data, such as a country's inflation rate or quarterly GDP growth) and submit their prediction by adjusting a numerical slider or inputting a specific value. Unlike traditional binary markets that only have a "right/wrong" outcome, Trepa utilizes a continuous reward mechanism: the closer the prediction is to the actual result, the higher the reward, allowing participants to earn some rewards even if their prediction has some deviation.
09 Compliance Risk, the Biggest Uncertainty in the Space
Looking at the eight projects mentioned above, it is evident that prediction markets have shown significant differentiation in product design and technical implementation. However, regardless of the model, a common challenge is how regulations define their legal status.
Prediction markets inherently exhibit characteristics of "speculation + gambling" and are considered a sensitive industry in most jurisdictions. In the United States, a few projects like Kalshi have obtained compliance licenses, and Polymarket has also attempted to build a legal path through acquisitions. However, many projects still operate in a regulatory gray area.
Additionally, even blockchain-based platforms inevitably face the following risks:
· Market Manipulation: A small amount of funds may influence price direction, compromising information integrity.
· Oracle Risk: Data sources may have errors or be attacked, directly resulting in settlement errors.
· Smart Contract Security: Some new platforms lack complete audits, posing risks of fund theft.
· Exit Difficulty: Some markets have limited liquidity, posing risks of fund lock-up.
Based on experience, it is generally not advisable to go ALL-IN on a prediction market. It is better to adopt a strategy of diversified small bets to hedge against the uncertainty of individual markets. For those eager to participate, it is advisable, especially for beginners, to start with compliant and user-friendly platforms, with Polymarket being a good starting point.
Furthermore, the biggest barrier to entry for beginners is understanding the trading mechanism and technology. In the prediction market, placing orders is not as simple as betting on price movements; it involves understanding the probability represented by odds or prices. For example, a price of 0.20 means the market believes there is a 20% probability of the event occurring, requiring some skill to convert to traditional odds. It is recommended to spend time reading the platform's beginner's guides or online educational articles to understand the profit and loss calculations of binary markets.
10 Final Thoughts: Tool or Speculative Spinoff?
Prediction markets are not a new phenomenon. As early as around the year 2000, many think tanks and economists saw it as a tool for "information aggregation and social consensus formation." However, the reality is that in the past two decades, whether in a Web2 context or on-chain applications, prediction markets have never been able to break through on a large scale. On the one hand, regulatory barriers have limited their user base, and on the other hand, their speculative nature has made it difficult to gain broad support from public institutions.
The recent resurgence of Polymarket and Kalshi may be another chase for new themes in the capital cycle, or it may simply be a supplement to market game tools. However, in any case, it is far from being a force that "changes market structure."
The real turning point in this race is not in the product form but at the institutional boundary. Before establishing a complete risk control and access system, we still need to maintain a calm observation.
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