Betting on the real world, what kind of business are these 8 prediction markets doing?

Author: Viee, Core Contributor of Biteye

Recently, the popularity of the prediction market sector has surged. At the beginning of October, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, ICE, announced an investment of up to $2 billion in Polymarket, with a post-investment valuation of approximately $9 billion; a few days later, the U.S. compliant prediction market Kalshi also completed a $300 million financing round, raising its valuation to $5 billion.

With massive financing, leading platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen a surge in trading volume. Kalshi expects its annualized trading volume to reach $50 billion this year, with a global market share exceeding 60%, surpassing Polymarket for the first time.

In the context of a cooling crypto narrative and tightening regulatory scrutiny, why has the prediction market been brought back into focus? Has its product form truly undergone a qualitative change? What new generation projects are attempting to break away from the old path of "speculative games"?

Here are eight representative project samples that provide insight into the different orientations of this sector in terms of product design, compliance strategies, and financing logic.

1. Polymarket @Polymarket

Polymarket is currently the largest prediction market platform in the world, having raised $2.279 billion in funding. In October, ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, committed to investing up to $2 billion, bringing Polymarket's pre-investment valuation to $9 billion.

Polymarket was founded by Shayne Coplan in 2020. Shayne participated in Ethereum ICO investments during high school and is regarded as a "prodigy" in the crypto circle. In response to regulatory pressure, Polymarket acquired the CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange QCEX for $112 million in 2025, thereby gaining legal operating qualifications in the U.S. Polymarket represents a classic approach to prediction markets, allowing users to bet on the outcomes of various real-world events using cryptocurrency by purchasing "prediction shares," 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 returns. The entire trading process occurs on-chain, settled in USDC, ensuring both the stability of funds and increased transparency.

2. Kalshi @Kalshi

Kalshi is the first licensed and compliant comprehensive prediction market exchange in the U.S., having raised $515 million, led by Paradigm and a16z.

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

Since opening the U.S. market in 2021, Kalshi has offered contracts on various events, including political elections, economic indicators, and sports events. In 2024, it won the right to launch contracts for the U.S. presidential election through litigation, filling a compliance gap.

3. The Clearing Company @theclearingco

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

The platform is currently in the preparation and development stage, with the team focusing on simplifying the user experience, aiming for the new product to be as easy to use for ordinary users as Robinhood or Coinbase, while also emphasizing the design of compliant products. From the concept, these products attempt to find a compromise between regulatory requirements and lowering the user understanding threshold, but whether they can truly establish an effective market ecosystem remains to be seen.

4. Limitless @trylimitless

Limitless is a high-frequency prediction market that offers short-term price prediction contracts ranging from minutes to intraday, having raised approximately $7 million, with investments from well-known crypto funds 1confirmation and Coinbase Ventures, founded by CJ Hetherington and others in 2023.

Limitless officially launched on the Base mainnet in May 2025 and subsequently expanded to Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum. Its product form is closer to traditional contract exchanges, allowing users to bet "Yes/No" in short-cycle price markets, with a preset expiration time, and the result determined by on-chain oracles at settlement.

From a data performance perspective, Limitless has created numerous scenarios for ultra-short trading, with some users utilizing quick and clear results for short-term arbitrage. However, this has also led to criticism within the community: some users pointed out that the platform had launched markets with predetermined outcomes or events that were nearly impossible to occur without charging fees, such as a BTC price market within 1.5 hours. This "certain outcome market" was abused by arbitrageurs to inflate trading volume, and the team has responded that they have optimized market generation rules to prevent such situations.

5. Opinion @opinionlabsxyz

Opinion Labs (O.LAB) has currently raised $5 million, led by YZi Labs, with other investors including Echo, Animoca Ventures, Manifold Trading, and Amber Group.

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

6. Melee @meleemarkets

Melee is a new prediction market backed by Variant Fund, claiming to create "Viral Markets"—allowing any topic to generate a prediction market and gain traffic through viral spread. It has completed $3.5 million in funding, with investors including Variant and DAO Builders Alliance (DBA). Co-founder and CEO Max previously served as the strategic head at Ava Labs and has founded a short video influencer brand, offering unique insights into community operations and business strategies.

As of now, Melee is still in the development and pre-launch phase, with no official product yet. The website currently only provides a waiting list registration entry, allowing candidates to join by linking their X accounts. According to official sources, the "viral market" concept advocated by Melee includes three main features: any topic can become a market, creators can monetize in a closed loop, and early participation incentives, positioning itself at the intersection of social media and prediction markets, attempting to stimulate widespread participation through a UGC (user-generated market) model.

7. Football.Fun @footballdotfun

Football.Fun centers around player predictions, tokenizing real-world professional players into tradable "shares." Users can hold player cards and earn points and settlement rewards based on their performance in real matches. Founder Adam is a member of the WolvesDAO community and has already completed $2 million in seed round financing, with investors including 6th Man Ventures, Zee Prime, and Sfermion.

8. Trepa @trepa_io

Trepa focuses on numerical predictions, allowing users to predict specific numerical values for macroeconomic indicators and receive varying degrees of returns based on the accuracy of their predictions. It has completed approximately $420,000 in funding, with Colosseum as the lead investor, a fund created by a former growth lead of the Solana Foundation.

The Trepa team was established in Singapore in 2024, with core members having cross-disciplinary backgrounds. It is currently in the public testing phase, allowing users to choose a prediction topic (mostly macroeconomic or financial data, such as inflation rates of a country or GDP growth rates for a quarter) and submit predictions by dragging a numerical slider or entering specific values. Unlike traditional binary markets that only have "right/wrong" outcomes, Trepa employs a continuous reward mechanism: the closer the predicted value is to the actual result, the higher the reward, allowing for partial returns even if the guess is off.

Compliance Risks: The Sector's Greatest Uncertainty

Looking across 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, the common challenge remains how regulations define their legal attributes.

Prediction markets inherently possess characteristics of "speculation + gambling," making them a sensitive industry in most jurisdictions. In the U.S., a few projects like Kalshi have obtained compliant licenses, while Polymarket has also attempted to establish a legal path through acquisitions. However, many projects remain in regulatory gray areas.

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

• Market Manipulation: A small amount of capital may influence price direction, undermining information efficacy.
• Oracle Risks: Errors or attacks on data sources can directly lead to settlement errors.
• Contract Security: Some new platforms lack comprehensive audits, posing a risk of fund theft.
• Exit Difficulty: Some markets have limited liquidity, posing a risk of fund entrapment.

Based on experience, prediction markets generally do not recommend an ALL-IN heavy position but rather suggest a diversified small-bet strategy to hedge against uncertainties in individual markets. If one is eager to participate, it is also advisable for newcomers to choose compliant and user-friendly platforms, with Polymarket being a good starting point.

In addition, the biggest barrier for newcomers is understanding the trading mechanisms and technical usage. In prediction markets, placing an order is not as straightforward as simply buying up or down; it requires understanding the odds or prices representing probabilities. For example, a price of 0.20 means the market believes there is a 20% chance the event will occur, which requires some skill in converting traditional odds. It is recommended to spend time reading the platform's beginner guides or online educational articles to understand the profit and loss calculations of binary markets.

In Conclusion: A Tool or a Variant of Speculation?

Prediction markets are not a new phenomenon. As early as around 2000, many think tanks and economists viewed them as one of the tools for "information integration and social consensus formation." However, the reality is that over the past twenty years, whether in Web2 scenarios or on-chain applications, prediction markets have never achieved large-scale breakthroughs. On one hand, compliance barriers have limited their user base; on the other hand, their speculative nature makes it difficult to gain widespread support from public institutions.

The recent resurgence of Polymarket and Kalshi may be a pursuit of new themes in the capital cycle or merely a supplement to market gaming tools. However, it is far from being a force that "changes market structure."

The true turning point for this sector lies not in product forms but in institutional boundaries. Until a complete risk control and access system is established, we must remain calm and observant.