Valuations Soar to $20 Billion: Why Did Kalshi and Polymarket Take Two Completely Different Paths?

Author: Mahe, Foresight News

Original Title: $20 Billion Valuation, Is Kalshi and Polymarket Entering an Arms Race?

Recently, according to The Wall Street Journal, the two leading prediction markets, Polymarket and Kalshi, are separately in talks with potential investors, both valued around $20 billion. In November 2025, there was news that Polymarket was discussing funding at a valuation of $12 billion. In December of the same year, Kalshi completed a $1 billion funding round, bringing its valuation to $11 billion.

In just a few months, their valuations are estimated to have doubled again.

Based on public market data and industry reports, by the end of February 2026, the total nominal trading volume of global prediction markets reached $127.5 billion, with Polymarket leading at $56.07 billion and Kalshi at $44.71 billion, together accounting for 79% of the market share.

While leading in total trading volume, Kalshi’s growth rate in 2025 was more remarkable, not only reversing its market share from a minority to over 60%, but also driving monthly active users from 600,000 to over 5.1 million, demonstrating a faster scale expansion. In contrast, Polymarket, leveraging its native crypto advantages, maintained its global event coverage and cumulative trading volume, but user growth was steadier, with peak monthly active users around 700,000. These core metrics—trading volume and monthly active users—clearly depict Kalshi’s explosive catch-up and Polymarket’s continued deep cultivation, forming a dual-hero landscape in prediction markets.

Specifically, Kalshi’s trading volume growth trajectory shows a leap from a low base to a high volume.

In 2024, Kalshi’s total nominal trading volume for the year was about $1.9 billion. Due to early regulatory frameworks and market awareness, it mainly relied on a few events. Entering 2025, this number skyrocketed to approximately $23.8 billion, an increase of over 1100% year-over-year. This explosion was reflected in monthly and weekly records: September’s monthly trading volume reached $2.86 billion, October further surged to $4.39 billion, and December exploded to $6.58 billion. The strong start to 2026 continued, with January’s monthly trading volume exceeding $10.4 billion.

Sports event contracts contributed about 81% of this trading volume.

As of March 9, Kalshi’s total cumulative trading volume exceeded $48.6 billion. Currently, its open contracts hover around $50 million.

Polymarket’s trading volume shows an earlier accumulation advantage and steady maintenance afterward. Dune data indicates that in 2024, Polymarket’s monthly nominal trading volume experienced explosive growth, with October reaching $4.266 billion, a record high, and its cumulative trading volume rising to $7.6 billion.

Since then, although monthly trading volume has gradually declined, it remains high. The turning point occurred in September 2025, when Polymarket began a pulse-like surge in trading volume.

In October, monthly trading volume broke $4.1 billion, and in November, it exceeded $4.3 billion.

By 2026, in January, trading volume surpassed $7.658 billion, and in February, it exceeded $7.9 billion. As of March 9, the cumulative trading volume surpassed $59.9 billion.

According to Dune data, its total user count has skyrocketed from 40,000 in 2024 to 2.31 million now.

Notably, Polymarket still holds advantages in liquidity for political and crypto events, with some weekly trading sessions accounting for up to 57%. However, its overall market share fell from 95% in mid-2025 to 35-40%, then gradually stabilized.

The divergence in trading volume data between the two platforms fundamentally stems from differences in business focus and user access modes. As a CFTC-regulated entity, Kalshi focuses on compliant USD trading, covering over 42 US states. Dominated by sports, Kalshi holds an edge, while Polymarket maintains leadership in politics and crypto sectors, jointly driving the weekly nominal trading volume of the entire market to remain in the tens of billions of dollars.

In terms of ecosystem partnerships, both prediction markets are active, deeply integrating with mainstream institutions, media, and sports IP. They are not only opening offline stores but also expanding rapidly online.

Kalshi relies heavily on its compliance advantage, forming strategic partnerships with Tradeweb and securing minority equity investments, embedding real-time probability data into institutional trading platforms; Robinhood became the largest traffic source, contributing over 50% of trading volume in late 2025; also, they have exclusive media partnerships with CNBC and CNN, with data directly integrated into programs and reports.

Polymarket, on the other hand, emphasizes Wall Street data output and entertainment penetration. In June last year, Polymarket partnered with X as its official prediction partner. It also secured a strategic investment of up to $2 billion from ICE, integrating data into financial products. In November, Polymarket reached a multi-year exclusive agreement with TKO Group, becoming the official prediction market partner for UFC and Zuffa Boxing, with data used in broadcasts and live events.

In January 2026, Polymarket announced an exclusive partnership with Dow Jones media, providing prediction market data to outlets including Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal.

Interestingly, both are official prediction market partners of the NHL, and Google has integrated data from both into its search and financial platforms.

Overall, based on trading volume and monthly active user data over the past two years, both platforms have driven the prediction market from a niche tool to a mainstream information and risk management platform. This trend is reshaping valuation logic in the crypto industry and providing real-time signals for traditional finance. If subsequent funding is secured, combined with hot geopolitical events (US-Iran conflicts), the World Cup, and the US elections on the horizon, both platforms are expected to hit new highs across various metrics in 2026.