Donald Trump is set to become the next President of the United States. Now, crypto prediction market Polymarket—which has seen its status supercharged by political betting—has resolved its flagship market on who would win the race—after seeing over $3.6 billion worth of volume.
At the time of writing, there’s roughly an hour left in the Polymarket dispute window. During this time users have the opportunity to challenge the resolution. However, this seems unlikely as the clear “resolution source” defined by the market has been met following the The Associated Press, Fox, and NBC all calling the election in favor of the Republican candidate.
Polymarket allows users to bet on a range of different events and topics, called markets. This year the protocol has seen raging success as it became the go-to spot for people to speculate on the U.S. Presidential election among other things. The prediction market became a key source that non-crypto-native media publications—such as The New York Times—would use in absence of traditional polls.
The now-closed market saw $3.64 billion worth of volume with $1.5 billion going to Trump, $1 billion for Harris, and $72 million for former Democrat candidate Joe Biden.
Other names that attracted volume include Michelle Obama with $153 million, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with $141 million, and even American rapper Kanye West with $9 million.
Trump was Polymarket’s favorite for the election for most of the campaign, peaking at a 71.5% chance of winning following the first assassination attempt in July. Harris, by comparison, had her highest chance of winning, according to Polymarket, in August at 54%.
By contrast, traditional polls had the two Presidential candidates neck and neck for most of the campaign. According to the polling average, Harris spent most of the election season ahead by a single percentage point. Over the weekend, a shock poll came out of Iowa from Ann Selzer, a well respected pollster, that predicted that Harris would win over Trump by three percentage points—this was wrong.
Shayne Coplan, the CEO of Polymarket, has taken the result as vindication of his product, after touting the prediction market as a source of truth for the election.
“Trust the markets, not the polls,” Coplan wrote on Twitter. “I just got word that the Trump campaign HQ literally found out they were winning from Polymarket. History was made today,” he said in another post.
I just got word that the Trump campaign HQ literally found out they were winning from Polymarket.
History was made today.
Surreal
— Shayne Coplan (@shayne_coplan) November 6, 2024
Despite the flagship market being resolved, other political markets remain open.
Most interestingly, Polymarket sees Trump as only 95% likely to be inaugurated as President on January 20, 2025. The market sees Harris with a 2% chance while ‘Other’ has a 2.8% chance. One commenter who bet $687 on ‘Other’ claims to have done so because they believe Trump may be assassinated before the ceremony.
Now, Polymarket faces existential concerns that the platform’s activity will see a significant drop after the U.S. election fueled prediction market craze. For this reason, some Polymarket whales have speculated its long-anticipated token may be around the corner.
Due to the protocol not charging trading or subscription fees and having already raised $70 million during a Series B funding round, community members believe a token launch is the next logical step for the company to raise money.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s any other way for it to make money without an airdrop,” Polymarket whale CSP Trading, also known as CrunchWrapoDeLaFuente, told Decrypt earlier this year.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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Source: https://decrypt.co/290374/polymarket-donald-trump-us-presidential-election
