What is Polymarket

Polymarket is a decentralised prediction market protocol built on Polygon (now migrating to newer infrastructure) that allows users to trade outcome contracts — binary options on future real-world events including elections, sports results, economic indicators, and geopolitical events. Polymarket gained global mainstream attention during the 2024 US presidential election, when it processed over $1 billion in volume and its odds were cited by major media outlets alongside traditional polling data. HOW PREDICTION MARKETS WORK Each Polymarket question creates a binary market with two outcome tokens: YES and NO. If an event resolves YES (e.g., "Will candidate X win the election?"), YES tokens pay out $1 each and NO tokens pay out $0. If it resolves NO, the opposite occurs. Prices before resolution reflect the market's collective probability estimate: a YES token trading at $0.65 implies a 65% market probability of the event occurring. Prices update continuously as new information emerges — creating real-time, incentivised probability estimates that aggregate the beliefs of traders with money at stake. WHY PREDICTION MARKETS OFTEN OUTPERFORM POLLS Traditional polls capture stated opinions with no financial consequence. Prediction market participants have real money at stake — creating strong incentives for honest, well-researched assessments. Markets aggregate information across diverse participants — insiders, experts, and retail speculators — more efficiently than surveys. The 2024 US election demonstrated this: Polymarket consistently showed higher probability for the eventual winner than major polls throughout the final months. POLYMARKET MECHANICS USDC-denominated: All trades use USDC — hedging out crypto price risk from outcome trading. Conditional order book: Markets use a central limit order book for price discovery. CLOB operators like Polymarket match orders. Verification: Outcomes are resolved by UMA's optimistic oracle and Polymarket's human review panel. Markets resolve within 24-72 hours of event conclusion. RECORD 2024 VOLUME Total Polymarket volume in 2024 exceeded $4B. The US presidential election market alone processed over $1B — making it the largest political prediction market in history. Real-money odds on Polymarket were regularly cited by the Economist, New York Times, and Bloomberg. ACCESS RESTRICTIONS Polymarket is geo-blocked in the United States due to CFTC jurisdiction concerns. Indian users can access the platform, though regulatory status under Indian law is evolving. All trading involves USDC deposited directly to the Polygon smart contract — non-custodial.

Terms in addition to the Polymarket

Blockchain

A blockchain is a subset of a distributed database. The Bitcoin inventors originally prototyped the system in 2008. This modern database is made up of separate blocks that are connected together in a chronological chain. Blockchains may be used to store a wide range of data types. It has mostly been utilized as a public ledger for bitcoin transactions to date. A peer-to-peer network comprised of independent nodes uses a consensus process to ensure the blockchain's security and legitimacy. Each node in the network keeps a public and immutable copy of the data.

2 Factor Authentication (2FA)

2 Factor Authentication is a security measure with two layers. It is used by the majority of cryptocurrency exchanges. To log in, you must provide not only a password, but also a code obtained, for example, from the Google authenticator.

Airdrop

An airdrop is a method of distributing coins. End users can typically obtain coins for free or in exchange for doing a small task, such as subscribing to a newsletter, sending a tweet, or inviting others via a personal affiliate link. Cryptocurrency airdrops — the act of depositing cryptocurrency into public crypto wallets — are utilized as a marketing, liquidity creation, and network bootstrapping technique for many different types of blockchain initiatives.

Altcoin

Altcoin - "alternative coin" - is any kind of digital currency other than Bitcoin. Since the launch of Bitcoin, the world's first digital currency, many altcoins (as well as supporting blockchains) have been created. Altcoin digital currencies share many similarities to Bitcoin, but consistently and have significant differences. There are about 20,000 altcoins, and this number is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. Altcoins often develop Bitcoin features. Ethereum, currently the most widely used blockchain, supports digital contracts and separate applications where Bitcoin does not. Altcoins are also often created to cater to the needs of different users. The Litecoin blockchain, for example, can process payments quarterly for the duration of Bitcoin.

Cold Storage

Cold storage is the way to store cryptocurrency offline. The word refers to the use of offline wallets that are not connected to the internet. Cold storage is the most secure way to keep cryptocurrencies since an offline currency becomes less likely to be hacked and stolen. Paper wallets, printed renditions of private keys, and offline hardware and software wallets are all examples of cold storage.