How Crypto Powers Polymarket: The Blockchain Infrastructure Behind $35B In Predictions
Polymarket has exploded from a niche crypto experiment into a $9 billion prediction market juggernaut with over $35.7 billion in cumulative trading volume, securing investments from Wall Street giants like Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (NYSE:ICE). The platform’s meteoric rise reveals something profound about the relationship between cryptocurrency infrastructure and prediction markets: without blockchain technology, none of this would be possible.
The symbiotic relationship between Polymarket and crypto goes far beyond simply accepting digital currency. Cryptocurrency provides the foundational rails that make decentralized prediction markets technically feasible, economically viable, and globally accessible in ways traditional finance never could.
Blockchain Solves The Trust Problem
Traditional prediction markets face an existential challenge: who holds the money, determines outcomes, and ensures fair payouts? Polymarket operates on Polygon’s blockchain, a Layer 2 scaling solution built on Ethereum, eliminating the need for trusted intermediaries entirely. Every transaction, market creation, and settlement executes through immutable smart contracts that cannot be manipulated or censored.
This infrastructure enables something remarkable. When users wager on whether Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) will hit $100,000 or predict Federal Reserve rate decisions, their funds remain in self-custodial wallets. Polymarket never controls user capital, fundamentally different from traditional betting platforms where companies hold customer deposits. The blockchain …
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