Gate Research: Polymarket Growth Accelerates, Gate Positions Itself as a New Entry Point for Prediction Markets

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2026-05-09 02:00

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Against the backdrop of continuously amplified trading demand driven by political, sports, and geopolitical events, coupled with an expanded fee scope on the platform, Polymarket's trading volume and active users are exhibiting event-driven structural growth. However, high revenue does not equate to long-term validation. Currently, it functions more as a trading market activated by high-attention events rather than a broadly distributed, general-purpose platform. Gate, on the other hand, enters the prediction market by leveraging its account system, low entry barriers, and product integration capabilities, offering an alternative, more easily convertible on-ramp beyond the native on-chain path.

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Core Thesis: Polymarket has evolved from an early on-chain experiment into an event-driven trading market with real transaction volume and fee-generation capabilities. However, its growth is highly dependent on high-frequency events like politics, sports, and geopolitics. The recent fee expansion is also influenced by adjustments to fee rules, and it has not yet proven its ability to generate stable, de-eventualized daily demand.
Key Elements:
1. Trading volume and active users are rising in tandem. In March 2026, trading volume reached $10.57 billion, with nearly 764,700 active users. However, user retention is significantly impacted by hot topic cycles.
2. Protocol revenue in Q1 2026 was $16.23 million, but fees in the last 30 days are already approaching this level. The surge in fees primarily stems from expanding the fee scope at the end of March, not a doubling of demand.
3. The market is highly concentrated, with political, sports, and geopolitical trading categories accounting for 92% of total volume. Long-tail categories struggle to sustain liquidity independently.
4. Polymarket possesses attributes of both an information market and a sentiment market. Its price discovery function is only activated in high-attention scenarios, exhibiting an uneven liquidity structure during weekends.
5. Positioned as an "event derivatives market," it serves information expression and attention monetization, fundamentally differing from DEXs, sports betting, and perpetual contracts.
6. Integration by centralized platforms like Gate addresses issues related to on-chain wallets, onboarding friction, and user conversion. Consequently, prediction markets are diverging into two paths: open on-chain and integrated centralized.