Speculation surrounding the 2024 US presidential election has surged on Polymarket, the predictions market on Polygon, with no signs of slowing down.
According to a Dune Analytics dashboard by Richard Chen, Polymarket has attracted nearly 30,000 monthly active users and seen over $110 million in trading volume for the month of June, both of which are all-time high figures for the predictions market.
Polymarket’s record levels of monthly users and trading volume come after its May announcement that it raised $45 million in a series B funding round that included Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
The all-time highs also come several months before November’s US presidential election, which is currently driving the majority of the activity on Polymarket. Who will win the 2024 presidential election is the platform’s most liquid prediction market with $206.6 million worth of bets.
Other side bets, including whether current US president Joe Biden will drop out of the 2024 election and who the Democratic nominee will be, have garnered roughly $200 million in bets.
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“It is monumental for crypto that Polymarket is being consistently cited by mainstream media for election probabilities. The seamlessness with which this happened speaks to its product market fit,” wrote Yuga Cohler, a senior engineering manager at Coinbase, on X. “Quietly, Polymarket has been serving as a bulwark against manufactured consensus and sanctioned misinformation.”
More Speculation Expected
“I expect increased speculation going into the elections. Biden gave a poor performance at the debate last Thursday and is causing great concerns among the voters and within the [Democratic Party],” Jim Hwang, chief operating officer at Firinne Capital, in a text message to Unchained.
Last week started with the probability that Joe Biden would drop out of the presidential election at 23%, but it jumped to as high as 50% on Thursday when the incumbent president and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump debated each other on live television. The chance of a Biden drop out has since settled to 34% at the time of writing.
Additionally, speculators have given current US vice-president Kamala Harris and former first lady Michella Obama a 4% probability of winning the US presidential election. California governor Gavin Newsom has a 3% probability, while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a 2% likelihood in becoming the 47th US president.
“The fact that Polymarket is showing slightly high chances of alternative candidates winning is indicative of the greater uncertainty that Biden is a viable candidate,” added Firinne Capital’s Hwang.
After news outlets reported Saturday evening that Biden and his family would discuss his future path on Sunday, the odds of him pulling shot up to 50%. But on Sunday evening, it was reported his family was “urging him to stay in the race,” as the Polymarket team tweeted, adding, “Yet his odds of dropping out are steady at 44%.”
Polymarket recently faced controversy in how the outcomes of prediction propositions were determined. Notably, users raised an issue in May about what counted as an ETH ETF approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
