Here’s a stat that should make crypto marketers pay attention: roughly 60% of people who placed their first World Cup bets on Polymarket had never touched a blockchain before. Prediction markets, not DeFi or token trading, are what’s pulling new users in.
The finding comes from a 90-day Bitget Wallet study that tracked onchain activity across 857,000 active Polymarket users. It suggests that people are arriving at crypto not because they want to learn about wallets or smart contracts — they show up because they have an opinion about something happening in the real world.
Alvin Kan, COO at Bitget Wallet, put it plainly. Earlier onboarding efforts focused on making crypto easier to understand. Simpler wallets, better UIs. But users still had to learn how crypto worked before participating. “Prediction markets shifted that dynamic,” Kan said. “Users show up because they have a view on something happening in the world.”
Volume records falling
The numbers back that up. Daily taker volume on prediction markets hit a record $713 million on Saturday, per Dune data. The World Cup winner contract alone has generated more than $3.1 billion in trading volume on Polymarket. A Bernstein report earlier this month predicted the 2026 World Cup would drive over $3 billion in incremental sports betting handle and $5-10 billion in additional prediction market volume.
Sports contracts are dominating across platforms. On Kalshi, they generated $8.5 billion over the past 30 days. On Polymarket, sports topped the charts with $4.9 billion in the same period.
Regulators circling
Growth this fast doesn’t go unnoticed. Kentucky sued five prediction market platforms on June 17, including Kalshi and Polymarket, accusing them of operating unlicensed sports betting. At least 17 other states have taken similar legal action. The CFTC then sued eight states, arguing they interfered with the federal regulator’s exclusive authority over event contracts. The White House has also gotten involved.
Prediction markets are clearly working as a crypto on-ramp. Whether regulators let that on-ramp stay open is a different question entirely.
