Web3 prediction platform Polymarket is experiencing unprecedented development, fueled largely by the upcoming 2024 US presidential election.
The platform has already achieved its highest buying and selling volumes and person participation up to now this month, solidifying its standing as a major participant within the prediction market area.
Consecutive file development
Polymarket’s buying and selling quantity hit $390.6 million in August, marking the fourth consecutive month of record-setting figures for the platform, primarily based on Dune Analytics knowledge.
The variety of lively customers on the platform additionally reached a brand new milestone, with 53,981 merchants participating this month. Moreover, open curiosity on the platform peaked at $103.3 million on Aug. 22, demonstrating the elevated curiosity in prediction markets.
A considerable portion of this exercise is pushed by election-related markets, which accounted for 87.6% of Polymarket’s buying and selling quantity over the previous week. In mid-July, these markets had been much more dominant, representing 93.2% of the platform’s weekly quantity.
Whereas the presidential election is the first driver, Polymarket’s non-election markets are additionally displaying development. Over the previous week, 19,135 customers traded in non-election markets, a major enhance from the 424 customers recorded in early Could.
These markets achieved a weekly quantity peak of $28.3 million in late July, although this has since decreased to $17.8 million.
Reward and criticism
The surge in exercise on Polymarket has sparked discussions concerning the position of prediction markets in public discourse. Some reward the platform for its potential to function a social device, whereas others argue that it’s too near playing for consolation.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin praised prediction markets like Polymarket for his or her potential as “social epistemic instruments.” He argued that these platforms provide a singular approach for the general public to interact in collective forecasting about vital occasions.
In line with Buterin, prediction markets present insights which might be much less inclined to the editorial biases generally present in conventional media and social media platforms. He additionally highlighted the potential use of those markets in governance, suggesting that they’ll contribute to extra knowledgeable decision-making processes.
Nevertheless, critics expressed skepticism about Buterin’s optimistic view. They argued that Polymarket’s election-related markets resemble conventional playing greater than they do unbiased forecasting instruments.
The priority is that market actions on Polymarket intently mirror these on mainstream betting platforms, indicating that some contributors could also be utilizing the prediction markets primarily for arbitrage alternatives between the 2 mediums.
This raises questions on whether or not the outcomes and odds generated by these markets are genuinely unbiased or if they’re influenced by comparable biases that Buterin sought to keep away from. Critics recommend that whereas prediction markets provide a brand new strategy to forecasting, they could nonetheless be topic to the identical limitations as conventional betting markets.
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