What is Polymarket?

Polymarket is the world's largest prediction market — a platform where people trade on the outcomes of real-world events. Every market is a YES/NO question. Share prices range from $0.01 to $1.00 and reflect the crowd's probability estimate: a YES share at 65¢ means the market sees roughly a 65% chance the event happens. If you're right, each share pays out $1.

Polymarket was founded in 2020 by Shayne Coplan, a New York University dropout who launched the platform at age 21 during the pandemic. In October 2025, after ICE (owner of the New York Stock Exchange) invested, Coplan became the world's youngest self-made billionaire.

Yes. After acquiring QCEX, a CFTC-licensed exchange and clearinghouse, for $112 million in July 2025, Polymarket officially relaunched in the United States in December 2025. Availability of specific markets can still vary by jurisdiction.

Trades settle in USDC — a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US dollar — on the Polygon blockchain. You can deposit crypto directly or use a bank card; the platform converts your deposit automatically, so no crypto experience is required.

For most of its history Polymarket charged no trading fees. Since late 2025 it has introduced small taker fees on most categories (roughly 0.75%–1.8% depending on the market), while makers pay 0%. That's still far below the 5–10% margin built into bookmaker odds.

Yes. Polymarket is an order-book exchange, so you can sell your shares to other traders at the current market price at any time — locking in a profit or cutting a loss without waiting for resolution.

Each market has written resolution rules. Outcomes are settled through a decentralized oracle process (UMA), where independent token holders verify the real-world result; disputed resolutions go through an escalation process. No single referee decides who wins.

A bookmaker sets the odds and profits when you lose. On Polymarket you trade against other people: prices are set by supply and demand in an open order book, there's no house edge, you can exit early by selling, and prices double as real-time probability estimates cited by media worldwide.

The 2024 US presidential election, with more than $3 billion traded on the main market. Polymarket's odds during that campaign were cited daily by global media as a faster, market-driven alternative to polls.

Prediction market prices aggregate the views of thousands of traders who back their opinions with money, and they're typically well-calibrated: events priced at 70% happen roughly 70% of the time. Not a crystal ball — but they update faster than polls and headlines. That's also the data our AI predictions build on.