📊 Polymarket's new blockchain and token airdrop...what we know so far

Happy NYE. You’re reading PredictionDesk, the daily newsletter that helps you become a prediction markets expert in under 5 minutes.

Here’s what we got for you today:

• 🚀 Polymarket’s New Year's resolutions

• 🔍 Kalshi sued by 37 states while Polymarket U.S. dodges legal pushback

•  🎯 Prediction markets close in on $300B in volume

• 📈 Market Movers

• 📊 Odds & Ends

It's one day before the New Year, and I still haven't written down my resolutions.

Meanwhile, Polymarket already has theirs for 2026: launch their own blockchain, leave Polygon behind, and airdrop a token to their most active users.

On December 22nd, they announced via Discord that they're building their own blockchain called POLY. No more relying on someone else's infrastructure.

This isn't just big for Polymarket. It's a slap in the face to Polygon, the network they're leaving behind. To get specific, Polymarket represents roughly a quarter of Polygon's entire economy:

• $326M in total value locked (25% of Polygon's $1.19B)

• 1.76 million total users

• $15 billion in historical volume

The final straw came two weeks ago when Polygon’s network went down, and Polymarket went with it. When you're doing $1.5 billion in monthly volume with 419,000 active users, downtime isn't an inconvenience. It's an invitation for those users to simply open Kalshi and trade there instead.

So they're leaving. And they're bringing gifts.

Polymarket's token launch and airdrop are finally slated for next year.

Nothing's confirmed yet on who gets what, but if you've been paying attention to how these crypto airdrops usually work, the playbook is pretty obvious: keep funds on the platform, trade across multiple markets consistently, provide liquidity, and generally use it like a normal person instead of trying to game the system.

Other successful airdrops (like Hyperliquid's HYPE) typically reward real users who engage with every part of the platform, not people who show up for one week then disappear.

Polymarket CMO Matthew Modabber confirmed it directly: "There will be a token, there will be an airdrop."

He also praised Hyperliquid's approach: "Teams like Hyperliquid who really thought it through will be around forever as a result."

Zoom out: Polymarket is studying what works and is planning accordingly. Their latest funding round from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) valued them at $9 billion. If they allocate the standard 5-10% of total supply to airdrops, that's $450M to $900M going to active Polymarket users.

Guess I found my first resolution for 2026.

POLYMARKET U.S. LAUNCH AVOIDS LEGAL SCRUTINY 🔍

While Kalshi was busy being sued by a coalition of 37 states over their sports betting offerings, Polymarket quietly launched their U.S. version of their platform. The catch? They’re only offering sports betting in the U.S., the exact same markets that got Kalshi in trouble.

So why hasn't Polymarket faced the same heat? I see three reasons:

1. Regulators are playing the waiting game. Courts are already producing conflicting rulings on Kalshi's cases - Nevada ruled against them, New Jersey ruled in their favor. The case is likely headed to the Supreme Court, and it seems regulators would rather wait for precedent than start fresh cases against Polymarket.

2. Institutional money changed the game. When regulators first went after Kalshi, it was just a scrappy startup. Now, Polymarket has up to $2B backing from ICE (the NYSE's parent company), and Kalshi just closed a $1B round from Paradigm.

3. The administration is openly supportive. Trump's Truth Social is planning its own prediction market platform. His son Donald Trump Jr. is a strategic advisor to Kalshi and invested in Polymarket. The new CFTC chair has signaled he'll defer to courts rather than crack down. We know where this administration stands.

Here's my take: Polymarket timed their U.S. launch perfectly. But opponents aren't going away. From the Indian Gaming Association's conference chair: "Trump won't be president forever. What goes up must come down, like a piñata. We'll be waiting."

PREDICTION MARKETS SET $300B GLOBAL ‘TRUTH’ TARGET 🎯

Prediction markets didn’t just grow in 2025, they detonated, posting a roughly 400 percent (!!!) increase in volume in a single year. That kind of growth usually belongs to baby tech giants and once in a generation shifts, not weird internet markets where people trade Trump-Zelensky handshake odds.

Those same markets are on a path to rival the $300B global sports betting industry by 2026, which is the moment everyone stops laughing and starts updating their spreadsheets.

The $300B number matters because it’s a psychological line as much as an economic one. Sports betting is one of the most liquid, global, and culturally normalized betting markets on earth. Reaching that scale means prediction markets are no longer experimental toys or clever side hustles. They become financial infrastructure and shape behavior.

This is where the story moves beyond making a quick buck. Analysts are pointing out that once markets are deep and liquid enough, their real value shifts toward information. These platforms can act as collective forecasting engines, continuously updating probabilities about elections, economic outcomes, or even the truthfulness of specific claims.

Instead of asking “Who’s right?” we ask “What does the market think, right now?” That’s a fundamentally different tool for decision making and fact checking.

Patrice Mesnier, founding partner of Oldenburg Capital Partners, explains, “These markets…reveal where conviction is forming and where it is breaking. Liquidity and legal structure still limit institutional deployment, but as a complement to macro analysis and scenario planning, prediction markets are becoming a relevant signal in policy-driven environments."

So while the growth headlines grab attention, the real shift is in how people use them. They won’t replace experts or journalism, but they might become a powerful complement.

MARKET MOVES 📈

ODDS & ENDS 📊

• Nikita Bier posted about the Polymarket “Nikita Bier out as head of product at X by 2026”, poking fun at how he could just… leave… and make a massive profit in the process

• Y Combinator funds Valence, a trading terminal that aggregates Polymarket and Kalshi markets in one place.

• Kalshi trader Canadian Carnac turns $300 to $100k trading politics markets

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