Valuations of Both Giants Surpass $20 Billion: Kalshi and Polymarket Launch an Arms Race?
- Core Viewpoint: Prediction market leaders Polymarket and Kalshi are seeking financing at valuations of approximately $20 billion each. Together, they hold nearly 80% market share and are jointly driving the evolution of this sector towards mainstream information and risk management platforms through differentiated paths.
- Key Elements:
- Market Landscape: As of the end of February 2026, the global prediction market has accumulated a trading volume of $127.5 billion. Polymarket ($56.07 billion) and Kalshi ($44.71 billion) together account for 79% of the share, forming a duopoly.
- Growth Path: Kalshi, driven by compliant sports contracts, saw its trading volume increase by over 1100% year-on-year in 2025, with monthly active users surging to over 5.1 million. Polymarket maintains depth in political and crypto fields, with its user base steadily growing to 2.31 million.
- Business Differentiation: Kalshi, as a CFTC-regulated entity, focuses on compliant USD-denominated trading. Polymarket is a crypto-native platform with significant liquidity advantages for specific events.
- Ecosystem Expansion: Both are actively partnering with mainstream institutions, media, and sports IPs (e.g., Robinhood, CNBC, X, UFC) to enhance data influence and user reach.
- Future Outlook: Geopolitical events, the World Cup, the U.S. election, coupled with potential financing deals, are expected to drive platform data to new historical highs in 2026.
Original Author: Ma He, Foresight News
Recently, according to The Wall Street Journal, the two leading prediction market platforms, Polymarket and Kalshi, have been in talks with potential investors for funding rounds, each with valuations around $20 billion. In November 2025, reports emerged that Polymarket was seeking funding at a $12 billion valuation. That December, Kalshi completed a $1 billion funding round, bringing its valuation to $11 billion.
In just a few months, the estimates have roughly doubled again.
Based on public market data and industry reports, as of the end of February 2026, the cumulative global nominal trading volume for prediction markets reached $127.5 billion. Polymarket led with $56.07 billion, followed by Kalshi at $44.71 billion, together accounting for 79% of the market share.
While leading in cumulative trading volume, Kalshi showed more prominent growth in 2025. It not only reversed its market share from a minority position at the start of the year to over 60%, but also drove its monthly active users (MAU) to surge from 600,000 to over 5.1 million, demonstrating faster scale expansion. In contrast, Polymarket leveraged its crypto-native advantages to maintain global event coverage and cumulative trading volume leadership, but its user growth was relatively steady, with peak MAU hovering around 700,000. These two core metrics—trading volume and MAU—clearly outline Kalshi's explosive catch-up and Polymarket's sustained deep cultivation, forming a duopoly in the prediction market landscape.
Specifically regarding trading volume performance, Kalshi's growth trajectory shows a leap from a low base to a high volume.
In 2024, Kalshi's annual nominal trading volume was approximately $1.9 billion, limited by early regulatory frameworks and market awareness, primarily relying on a few event-driven trades. Entering 2025, this figure skyrocketed to about $23.8 billion, a year-on-year increase exceeding 1100%. This explosion was directly reflected in monthly and weekly records: September saw a single-month volume of $2.86 billion, October climbed further to $4.39 billion, and December surged to $6.58 billion. The strong momentum continued into 2026, with January's monthly volume exceeding $10.4 billion.
Sports event contracts contributed about 81% of this trading volume.
As of March 9, Kalshi's cumulative total trading volume exceeded $48.6 billion. Currently, its open interest hovers around $500 million.
Polymarket's trading volume reflects its earlier accumulation advantage and later steady maintenance. Dune data shows that in 2024, Polymarket's monthly nominal trading volume experienced explosive growth. In October 2024, its monthly volume reached $4.266 billion, setting a historical high and raising its cumulative volume to $7.6 billion.
Subsequently, although its monthly volume slowly declined, it remained at high levels. A turning point occurred in September 2025, when Polymarket began its pulse-like surge in trading volume.
October saw a single-month volume exceeding $4.1 billion, and November surpassed $4.3 billion.
Moving into 2026, in January alone, its trading volume broke $7.658 billion, and February exceeded $7.9 billion. As of March 9, its cumulative trading volume surpassed $59.9 billion.
According to Dune statistics, its total user count has skyrocketed from 40,000 in 2024 to 2.31 million today.
It is worth noting that Polymarket still holds an advantage in liquidity depth for political and crypto events, with some weekly transaction counts accounting for up to 57%. However, its overall market share dropped from 95% in mid-2025 to 35-40%, before gradually stabilizing.
The divergence in trading volume data between the two platforms essentially stems from differences in business focus and user access models. As a CFTC-regulated entity, Kalshi focuses on compliant USD trading, covering over 42 US states. Kalshi holds the upper hand in sports-dominated markets, while Polymarket maintains leadership in political and crypto domains. Together, they drive the entire market's weekly nominal trading volume to consistently stay above several billion dollars.
In terms of ecosystem partnerships, both major prediction markets have been active, deeply integrating with mainstream institutions, media, and sports IPs. They have not only opened physical "corner stores" but also expanded aggressively online.
Kalshi heavily relies on its compliance advantage, forming a strategic partnership with Tradeweb and receiving a minority equity investment, embedding real-time probability data into its institutional trading platform; Robinhood became its largest traffic source, contributing over 50% of trading volume in the second half of 2025; it also secured exclusive media partnerships with CNBC and CNN, with data directly integrated into programs and reports.
Polymarket focuses more on Wall Street data distribution and entertainment penetration. In June last year, Polymarket partnered with X, becoming its official prediction partner. It secured a strategic investment of up to $2 billion from ICE, which incorporates its data into financial product streams. In November, Polymarket entered a multi-year exclusive agreement with TKO Group, becoming the official prediction market partner for UFC and Zuffa Boxing, with data integrated into broadcasts and live events.
In January 2026, Polymarket established an exclusive partnership with Dow Jones Media, providing prediction market data to media outlets including Barron's and The Wall Street Journal.
Interestingly, both are official prediction market partners of the NHL. Additionally, Google has integrated data from both platforms into its search and finance platforms.
Overall, judging from the trading volume and MAU data over the past two years, both platforms have jointly propelled prediction markets from niche tools to mainstream information and risk management platforms. This trend not only reshapes the valuation logic within the crypto industry but also provides real-time signal references for traditional finance. If subsequent funding rounds materialize, coupled with hot geopolitical events (US-Iran conflict), World Cup events, and the eve of the US election, various metrics for both platforms are expected to reach new historical highs throughout 2026.
