Polymarket

Polymarket is a US-founded prediction market running on the Polygon blockchain network, with bets settled in USDC stablecoin. Users buy shares in yes/no outcome markets covering elections, geopolitical events, sports, and economic indicators, with share prices functioning as live probability estimates. It was founded in 2020 in New York. In 2022 it settled with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for $1.4 million over unregistered binary options contracts, subsequently blocking US users from accessing the platform.

Polymarket gained global credibility during the 2024 US presidential election, when its markets diverged significantly from polling averages and proved directionally accurate, making it a reference point for analysts alongside conventional forecasting. During the Iran conflict, the platform served as a live sentiment gauge: ten newly created wallets placed $160,000 on a Ceasefire by month's end, with potential payouts exceeding $1 million, raising questions about whether market participants had advance knowledge of Trump's diplomatic moves. In the succession market, Polymarket priced Chief Justice Mohseni-Ejei as frontrunner to succeed Ali Khamenei at approximately 18%, with a meaningful share of bets on the position being abolished entirely.

The platform sits in an uncomfortable regulatory gap: barred in the US yet treated as a credible intelligence signal by analysts, journalists, and financial professionals worldwide. The Ceasefire wallet episode raised whether prediction markets surface collective wisdom or simply reward those with advance knowledge of events, a question that sits at the heart of debates about their validity as forecasting tools.