Author: momo, ChainCatcher

The prediction market is one of Crypto's most "money-attracting" tracks recently, and it is a rare existence that has gone against the trend and gained momentum in the bear market.

On March 27, Polymarket once again received an investment of US$600 million from ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, and its cumulative financing has reached US$2.879 billion; its opponent Kalshi is also not far behind, with a cumulative financing of US$2.515 billion and a valuation of US$22 billion.

Although the leading players have clearly taken the lead in terms of financing scale and transaction activity, new entrants are still emerging. Leading exchanges including Binance and Coinbase have also begun to accelerate their layout through wallet integration, mergers and acquisitions, etc. For example, Binance Wallet has just announced the launch of the prediction market function and connected Predict.fun as a provider. Paradigm is also developing a prediction market trading terminal for professional traders and market makers.

As the World Cup approaches (it will start in about 2 months), there is a high probability that the prediction market will usher in a new round of traffic peaks.

This article will review the latest landscape of the prediction market from the perspective of financing and investment, and take stock of some early representative projects and their differentiated paths.

Financing nearly US$6 billion, but 30% of projects have been discontinued

According to incomplete statistics from RootData,Among the more than 230 prediction market projects included, more than 50 projects have received public financing, with a total financing amount of US$5.687 billion.

However, it is worth noting that among these 230-plus projects, only more than 150 are in operation, and more than 70 have ceased operations.The elimination rate is close to one-third, reflecting that although the track has strong ability to attract money, project survival is not easy.

In addition,The capital distribution in this track is extremely concentrated. Polymarket and Kalshi totaled US$5.394 billion, accounting for approximately 94.85% of the track's total financing. This means that the remaining 50-odd projects only share about 5% of the financing amount, and capital is highly concentrated in the hands of the "Two Giants". Among them:

• There are 7 projects with financing amount of US$10 million and above (excluding Polymarket and Kalshi), namely: Novig (US$75 million), Opinion (US$25 million), Space (public fundraising of US$20 million, community doubts have been softened by Rug), Limitless (US$17 million), The Clearing Company (1500 million, acquired); Noise ($14.1 million), Polynado ($10 million).

• There are three projects with financing amounts between US$5 million and US$10 million, namely: AetheriumX (US$8 million), 42 (US$7.2 million), and Augur (US$5 million).

The vast majority of projects with disclosed amounts have financing scales below US$5 million, and the financing stages are highly concentrated in seed rounds and pre-seed rounds.

From the perspective of financing rhythm, the capital attention of the prediction market has increased significantly since the second half of 2024, and will further accelerate into an active period in 2025. Entering 2026, 16 financing events have occurred in the first four months alone, almost maintaining a frequency of “one every week”. On the whole, on the one hand, leading projects continue to receive large amounts of funding, on the other hand, early projects have also begun to receive exploratory funding intensively, and the track shows the dual characteristics of "head strengthening + long tail diffusion".

At the same time, leading players are accelerating their deployment in the prediction market through mergers and acquisitions. For example, Polymarket acquired the prediction market API company Dome, Coinbase acquired The Clearing Company founded by Kalshi and Polymarket's former growth director, and Gemini acquired Guesser, a very early player in the track.

How can early-stage projects break through under the duopoly structure?

Except for the two giants Polymarket and Kalshi, it is difficult for other early-stage projects to compete head-on in terms of funding and scale, so they are looking for breakthroughs in segmented scenarios, transaction mechanisms, and product positioning.

An obvious direction isverticalization. For example, Novig only makes sports predictions, does not touch politics or entertainment, and only covers a single category.

Another direction isInnovation in trading mechanisms. For example, Noise and OmenX both choose to introduce the leverage mechanism of derivatives directly into the prediction market; 42 packages each prediction result into a small token similar to a meme currency, which can be bought and sold at any time on the bonding curve. This "prediction is trading" idea is different from traditional binary betting.

There are also a number of project optionsNot platforms, but tools. Polynado is positioned as a "Bloomberg terminal" for prediction markets, using AI to proactively discover trends and generate markets; Kairos and TradeFox are cross-platform aggregation trading terminals that help users manage multiple prediction market positions in one stop. They do not directly steal Polymarket users, but try to become the underlying infrastructure of the entire track.

In addition, Compliance and capital efficiency are also attempts to differentiate. Novig uses the sweepstakes model (free coins + cash coins) to circumvent the definition of gambling, and predict.fun allows users’ predicted funds to generate additional income at the same time during participation.

There are also a number of projects that are making a fuss atthe traffic entrance and distribution levels. Melee improves users’ social sharing; Myriad uses browser plug-ins to embed prediction functions directly into media pages such as Twitter and YouTube, allowing users to place bets while browsing content. They do not try to allow users to actively "walk into" a prediction market, but to deliver predictions to users.

The intervention of AI is also lowering the threshold for creating prediction markets. worm.wtf supports users to input prompt words, and AI can generate prediction markets with one click; Polynado also uses AI to automatically discover emerging trends and build markets in advance. This allows the supply side of the prediction market to move from "manual topic selection" to "algorithm driven".

In general, leading players compete for funds and scale, while small and medium-sized projects show their talents in vertical scenarios, trading mechanisms, tool positioning, AI generation and traffic distribution. The following is a brief inventory of some early projects:

1. Novig

Novig is the most funded prediction market project after Polymarket and Kalshi. The project was founded in 2021 and just received US$75 million in financing led by Pantera Capital in February this year, with a post-money valuation of US$500 million.

Novig's characteristic is that it only focuses on the sports track. It currently uses a sweepstakes (lottery) operating model to avoid being defined as "gambling." What does that mean?

It uses two virtual currencies:

• Novig Coins: Users receive it for free and use it to participate in various "games" or "guessing" on the platform. Because users are not using real money to purchase the opportunity to participate, this does not constitute “gambling” by the legal definition.

• Cash Coin (Novig Cash): Users need to purchase it with real money or obtain it by participating in activities. Rewards won using this coin can be exchanged for real cash. More like the virtual currency settings in games, users usually purchase "virtual currency packages" in order to obtain more "game opportunities" or a better experience. This is actually gambling with real money, but in the legal documents, users are "purchasing virtual goods" rather than "placing bets."

Novig has officially applied for a Designated Contract Market (DCM) license from the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission), with the goal of operating legally in 50 states across the United States and becoming a regulated prediction market exchange with a monthly trading volume of approximately US$300 million.

As for the team, both co-founders Jacob Fortinsky graduated from Harvard and have experience in investment banking.

2. Opinion (OPN)

Opinion (formerly known as O.LAB) is a prediction market in the BNB Chain ecosystem. YZi Labs has invested in two rounds. Opinion’s 3 rounds of financing exceeded $25 million, with investments from Hack VC, Amber Group, Animoca Ventures, Jump and other institutions. Coins have been issued in early March.

The characteristic of Opinion is that it also combines the concept of AI, mentioning that the platform uses AI Oracle (artificial intelligence oracle) to assist in creating markets and generating predictions.

However, during the TGE period, Opinion's financing, transaction volume data and airdrops were all questioned by the market.

3. Limitless (LMTS)

Limitless is the social protocol of the Base ecosystem. It has raised a total of $17 million in financing, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, 1 confirmation and other institutions. Limitless has been TGE in October 2025, but has been questioned by the community due to issues such as airdrops.

Limitless' prediction content is characterized by supporting short-term price prediction transactions for encrypted assets, stocks, etc.

The team founder & CEO/CTO has worked at Gitcoin and is an Optimism citizen badge holder. Its COO Roman Mogylnyi was the co-founder of the viral AI face-swapping app Reface.

4. Polynado

Polynado is positioned as an AI-native prediction infrastructure. In December 2025, it completed an investment of US$10 million from LD Capital, Waterdrip Capital and others.

It is not an independent prediction market platform, but aims to build a "Bloomberg terminal-level" intelligence data layer for on-chain prediction markets represented by Polymarket. It uses AI to proactively discover emerging trends, automatically generate markets, and build and trade these markets in advance before the market notices.

5. predict.fun

Binance Wallet has just announced the launch of a prediction market, and predict.fun is its main provider. predict.fun announced in December 2025 that it had received investment from YZi Labs.

predict.fun's model features that the funds that allow users to participate in predictions are no longer idle, but can generate additional income at the same time during the prediction period. In early March, it also acquired Probable, another prediction market.

predict.fun founder dingaling was the head of research at Binance, co-founder of PancakeSwap, and a well-known NFT whale. He also founded the token launch platform boop.fun. However, dingaling has also been questioned by the community for pursuing a trendy entrepreneurship. It is also rumored that he has had disputes with Binance and CZ.

Recommended reading: "Enemies reconcile? CZ joins forces with former employees to launch prediction platform predict.fun》

6. Melee

Melee is a prediction market on Solana, targeting "Viral Markets". It closed a $3.5 million pre-seed round led by Variant, with participation from DBA and angel investors including CoinShares chief strategy officer Meltem Demirors, Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and Web3 investor Santiago Roel Santos.

Melee is characterized by its emphasis on social interaction and virality. It allows users to create permissionless marketplaces of facts or opinions (e.g. pop culture, sports), and the platform enhances user engagement through social integrations (e.g. X/Discord one-click sharing).

In addition, Melee also has a unique feature that allows users to buy the "market as a whole" (the share of all results) instead of betting on Yes/No or multiple options for the results. This is equivalent to betting on the growth and popularity of the entire market, rather than on specific rights or wrongs. It is suitable for users who are optimistic about the popularity of the topic but are unsure of the specific results.

7. The Clearing Company (acquired by Coinbase)

The Clearing Company has been acquired by Coinbase. It has previously completed a $15 million seed round of financing, led by USV, with participation from well-known institutions such as Coinbase Ventures.

Its founder Toni Gemayel was the head of growth at Kalshi and Polymarket. The goal is to combine the openness of decentralization with the credibility of regulatory compliance to create a new generation prediction market that is both accepted by retail investors and favored by regulators.

8. AetheriumX

AetheriumX is an early prediction market project that completed US$8 million in strategic financing in January this year, with participation from CGV, GAINS Associates, DuckDAO, Genesis Capital and others.

According to official information, its feature is that user funds can be dynamically routed to different DeFi protocols, RWA or GameFi activities to improve fund efficiency.

9. Myriad

Myriad was incubated and built by DASTAN, the parent company of Decrypt and Rug Radio. It recently completed a seed round of financing with participation from MoonPay, Thomas Lee and others.

Its characteristic is that it is committed to embedding prediction markets into news and social media pages such as Twitter, YouTube, and Decrypt through browser extensions, allowing users to use stable coins to directly participate in predictions when browsing content on a daily basis.

Myriad is integrated into Trust Wallet.

10. Noise

Noise is the prediction market of the Base ecosystem. It has raised more than US$14 million in total. Paradigm is the lead investor in the seed round, and institutions or projects such as GSR, Figment Capital, and Kaito also participated in the investment.

The characteristic of Noise is that, unlike Polymarket, which makes binary bets on the outcome of events, it allows users to conduct long and short leverage transactions on a certain topic, trend or brand. The core is to turn "Internet attention" into a continuously tradable financial asset.

Noise opened its testnet in May last year and recently opened a waiting list for applications.

11, 42

42 was formerly known as Alkimiya and is now renamed 42. In 2021 and 2023, the team has received investment from Castle Island Ventures, 1kx, Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly, Circle Ventures and other institutions.

The characteristic of 42 is that it combines the "prediction event" and "meme launching platform" mechanisms, so that the possible outcome of each event will be made into a small token like a meme coin.

You can buy and sell at any time on the bonding curve just like meme coins. When the event actually ends (for example, the election results come out, the competition ends), the platform will make final settlement based on the real results.

12. Kairos

Kairos is not an independent prediction market platform, but a Web3 prediction market trading terminal, a unified execution and intelligence layer that aggregates data and trading functions of multiple prediction markets. Kairos received $2.5 million in funding led by a16z in February this year.

13, OmenX

OmenX is a decentralized prediction market platform that supports leveraged trading. Users can trade the results of real-world events such as crypto, sports, and finance by buying and selling long and short positions.

On March 30, OmenX announced that it had received millions of dollars in financing from Paramita and M77 Ventures.

14. TradeFox

TradeFox (formerly factCheck) was incubated by AllianceDAO. It first focused on making a news anti-counterfeit version of Polymarket, which allows users to bet on the authenticity of facts that have occurred. But it subsequently transformed into a prediction market aggregator, focusing on integrating decentralized prediction markets into a seamless trading terminal, which allows users to conduct leveraged trading on real-world events (such as political elections, sports events, crypto price fluctuations), and the trading page is very similar to Hyperliquid. TradeFox has been launched on the mainnet.

15.worm.wtf

worm.wtf is the prediction market of Solana ecosystem. It supports AIGC, users can simply enter prompt words, and the platform can help users generate prediction markets instantly.

Conclusion

The growth of the prediction market is far from stopping. In the first quarter of 2026, track trading volume reached $75 billion, a 70% increase from the previous quarter, and the prediction market is expected to further outperform during the World Cup.

What is more noteworthy is the accelerated adoption of traditional finance. The CEO of JPMorgan Chase has stated that he is considering providing prediction market services, and Wall Street brokers such as Clear Street and Marex are also actively accessing it. These signals open up a lot of imagination for predicting future traffic, compliance and commercialization of the market.

In terms of market structure, it is expected that the situation of highly concentrated chips will be difficult to change in the short term. Both financing and transaction volume are currently firmly concentrated on the two platforms of Polymarket and Kalshi, and their compliance layout is also accelerating.

Judging from the current situation that nearly 1/3 of the more than 230 projects have ceased operations, it is far more difficult to predict the market well than imagined. Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi has predicted that 90% of prediction market products will be unused by the end of the year. This is not alarmist. With the moat built by leading companies through liquidity, compliance distribution and continuous subsidies, it is difficult for latecomers to break through simply by imitating them.

But in the medium to long term, new players are not without opportunities. Delphi Digital pointed out that the real breakthrough lies not in competing head-on with Polymarket, but in splitting the technology stack to serve different user types. For example, aggregation terminals and advanced analysis tools meet the needs of professional traders; social interfaces try to leverage a broader mass entertainment market. In addition, the addition of AI Agent will quickly smooth out the arbitrage space in the binary market and promote the migration of funds to new mechanisms. Prediction markets are evolving into an infrastructure for options, insurance and governance, rather than just a vehicle for speculation.

For ordinary users, as new projects continue to pour in, they need to be extra vigilant about the risk of being "counterattacked". Opinion is a recent example: it has outstanding financing, AI narrative, and a large institutional platform. However, after TGE, it encountered data doubts, shrinking airdrops, and community backlash. Similar scenarios are expected to be repeated.

The track is far from finalized, but for those new players who are shouting "subvert Polymarket, Kalshi", you might as well let the bullets fly for a while.