From Polymarket to Probable: Deconstructing the Prediction Market Competition Index and Anti-Sybil Strategies
- Core Viewpoint: This article analyzes the interactive value of several promising projects within the prediction market sector. It points out that when participating in these "airdrop farming" activities that require real capital investment, it is crucial to focus on the project's fundamentals, the intensity of competition, and interaction costs, while carefully evaluating risks and rewards.
- Key Elements:
- Participating in prediction markets carries risks such as capital erosion, bot manipulation, and regulatory uncertainty. Use funds you can afford to lose and possess the ability to judge events.
- As the industry leader, Polymarket boasts a large user base, active trading, and clear token/airdrop expectations. However, competition is fierce, and new users must strictly control costs.
- Kalshi has strong financing and is regulated, but it has no clear token plan, charges trading fees, and has low airdrop expectations, making its interaction cost-effectiveness relatively low.
- Opinion is growing rapidly with clear airdrop expectations and backing from YZi Labs. However, its interaction rules are complex, requiring a certain trading volume to earn points effectively.
- Both Predict.fun and Probable are in early stages with relatively lower competition intensity and have point mechanisms. However, the former's founder has had controversies, and the latter currently relies on referrals for point acquisition.
Original Author: KarenZ, Foresight News
Airdrop farming has evolved into a sophisticated investment activity. However, in the highly anticipated prediction market sector, not all projects are worth investing time and capital in.
Prediction markets, in particular, differ from zero-cost testnet tasks as they typically require placing bets with "real money." While individual bet amounts are controllable, this "pay-to-play" barrier directly filters out a large number of purely freeloading script bots but also introduces the risk of capital erosion for genuine users.
If you're still debating where to place your chips in 2026, this article will help you analyze from three dimensions: reasons for attention, level of competition (competitive data), and cost-effectiveness of interaction.
But before charging in, please read this "self-defense" guide:
- Regulatory risks.
- Do not participate with funds you cannot afford to lose.
- Prediction markets are susceptible to bot manipulation, market manipulation, and insider trading.
- Participating in prediction market interactions requires you to have a certain level of judgment regarding news trends, sports events, or developments in the crypto industry.
- Carefully review the settlement rules, including the contract's designated information source, whether the deadline includes the day itself, wording traps, etc.
- If you blindly place bets solely for the purpose of farming interactions, you are highly likely to face the risk of principal loss. Data from Hubble AI shows, "On Polymarket, the most active retail trading group (medium frequency), while having the highest win rate across the network, is limited by capital efficiency and a lack of systematic advantage, resulting in a median actual return close to zero."
- Consider hedging strategies: For uncertain prediction markets, avoid one-sided bets; try cross-platform hedging. Although there are spreads and slippage costs, this minimizes the risk of one-sided betting, allowing you to focus on accumulating trading volume. It is important to note that no trading strategy can completely eliminate risk; always assess carefully when operating.
Polymarket
Why is it worth watching?
- Leader in prediction markets;
- Cumulative financing exceeds $22 billion, including a $20 billion strategic investment from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.
- Polymarket's Chief Marketing Officer Matthew Modabber confirmed the POLY token and airdrop plan in October 2025.
- Polymarket has received CFTC approval to launch in the US and is returning to the US market.
- Strong expectations for a token launch and retrospective airdrop in 2026.
How competitive is it?
- Nearly 920,000 cumulative traders, indicating a massive user base.
- Monthly active users have consistently been above 460,000 in the last 3 months, showing stable user stickiness.
- Weekly trading volume has been above $1 billion in recent weeks.
- The average number of transactions per active wallet per day increased from less than 10 in December 2025 to a peak of 23 in early January, indicating a surge in trading activity.
- Regarding average bet size: 20.69% of users average bets below $10, 30.35% average between $10 and $50, 23.91% average between $100 and $500, and 0.24% average above $10,000.
Is it worth interacting with?
Worth participating, but costs must be strictly controlled. As a highly competitive project, its potential airdrop scale is extremely attractive. However, Polymarket's mature user ecosystem means a large number of historical traders have already secured a portion of the retrospective airdrop quota. New users entering should rationally evaluate the input-output ratio. In October 2025, according to Bloomberg, Polymarket was in early talks with investors to raise funds at a valuation of $120-150 billion, a more than tenfold increase from its valuation four months prior, indicating continuously rising project value recognition.
Kalshi
Why is it worth watching?
- Cumulative financing close to $16 billion. The most recent Series E funding round occurred in December 2025, raising $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation, with participation from Sequoia, a16z, ARK Invest, Y Combinator, etc., doubling the valuation from the $3 billion funding round in October 2025.
- Regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
- Kalshi has not officially disclosed any token or airdrop plans. However, based on its recent expansion into the crypto ecosystem, community analysis suggests airdrop expectations exist.
How competitive is it?
- Cumulative notional trading volume reached $30 billion.
- Notional trading volume has been spiraling upward since August 2025, with recent weeks seeing volumes between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, showing steady growth momentum.
- Total number of trades is close to 130 million, placing its trading activity at the forefront of the prediction market field.
Is it worth interacting with?
Participate cautiously; cost-effectiveness is low. On one hand, the project lacks a clear token launch or airdrop timeline, resulting in high uncertainty. On the other hand, Kalshi charges transaction fees, making volume farming costly. Furthermore, its mature business model implies a relatively lower need for token incentives, making the probability of an airdrop materializing relatively limited.
Opinion
Why is it worth watching?
- Opinion is one of the fastest-growing prediction markets, with growth significantly outpacing most competitors during the same period.
- Opinion was one of the selected projects for Season 7 of Yzi Labs' MVB Accelerator program in 2024.
- Opinion completed a $5 million seed funding round in March 2025, led by Yzi Labs. In December, the Opinion team disclosed receiving tens of millions of dollars in additional funding support.
- Opinion launched its mainnet in October 2025 alongside a points system, indicating clear airdrop expectations.
How competitive is it?
- From October 2025 to present, Opinion's cumulative notional trading volume reached $15.3 billion, second only to Polymarket ($44.8 billion) and Kalshi ($30 billion).
- Current Opinion TVL exceeds $140 million.
- Cumulative traders exceed 170,000.
- Daily trading users reached over 40,000 from late December to early January, with the last 10 days seeing between 10,000 and 20,000 users.
Is it worth interacting with?
Quite competitive, but airdrop expectations are clear, and it has strong backing from YZi Labs. Note that weekly trading volume needs to exceed $200 to consistently earn points for the weekly leaderboard. Point weighting covers multiple dimensions including limit order liquidity provision, trading volume, and holding time bonuses, requiring a well-planned interaction strategy.
Predict.fun
Why is it worth watching?
- Predict.fun was selected for the YZi Labs incubation program EASY Residency Season 2 list in December 2025.
- Predict.fun is a BNB Chain native prediction market incubated and invested in by YZi Labs. Founder dingaling previously faced controversy due to the failure of boop.fun and "rat trading" allegations, drawing criticism from Changpeng Zhao (CZ), though they later reconciled, and the negative impact gradually subsided.
- Predict.fun integrates with the Venus protocol, allowing users to continue earning yield on their staked funds during the waiting period for market resolution (applicable to some short-term markets).
- Features a points mechanism, indicating transparent airdrop expectations.
How competitive is it?
- Cumulative notional trading volume is $320 million, with prediction trading volume exceeding $200 million.
- Cumulative number of trades reached 478,000, with 36,000 unique trading users, averaging 13 trades per user.
- Since mid-December, daily active users have mostly ranged between 2,000 and 4,000, indicating a relatively small user base.
- Current TVL is approximately $22.58 million.
Is it worth interacting with?
Medium to low competition. Compared to Polymarket, where most participants are experienced players and institutions, the majority on Predict.fun place bets primarily to farm interactions. Strategies for accumulating PP points include trading on the platform, providing meaningful liquidity, holding positions, etc.
Probable
Why is it worth watching?
- Probable is co-incubated by PancakeSwap and YZi Labs, giving it strong, legitimate backing.
- Probable launched a points program on January 12, 2026, though currently points are only obtainable through referrals.
- Zero transaction fees.
How competitive is it?
- Since December 18, 2025, cumulative notional trading volume is $560 million, with prediction trading volume reaching $380 million.
- Cumulative users: 12,389. From late December 2025 to early January 2026, daily active users ranged between 500 and 1,000. Starting in early January, daily active users gradually increased, with single-day active users exceeding 4,000 on both January 14 and 15.
- Cumulative number of trades: 834,357, averaging 67 trades per user.
- Average transaction size is $425, with an average total trading volume per user of $3,357.
Is it worth interacting with?
Low competition. Probable launched in mid-December and is still in its early stages. Note that referrers must first complete a cumulative trading volume of $100 themselves to unlock and generate an invitation code. Furthermore, as a project incubated by PancakeSwap, its token is highly likely to launch via PancakeSwap's CAKE.PAD and may even be listed directly on Binance.
