A study of 1.29M wallets shows users returning more often and trading across more categories, with sports leading at $10.1B and crypto serving as the main onboarding gateway.
Polymarket processed $25.7 billion in trading volume in March, with retail traders driving consistent, repeated activity across an expanding set of real-world markets, according to a new joint report from Bitget Wallet and Polymarket.
The study, based on 1.29 million wallets active in Q1 2026, found that 82.3% of users traded under $10,000, indicating that the platform is overwhelmingly retail-driven. Active days per user rose from 2.5 to 9.9 over the study period, while the average number of categories each user traded expanded from 1.45 to 2.34.
The report frames the shift as behavioral rather than capital-driven, with users returning more frequently and rotating between categories rather than concentrating on one-off events. That tracks with earlier findings from Keyrock and Dune Analytics, which pegged on-chain prediction market monthly volumes as having grown 130-fold since early 2024.
Sports emerged as the largest category on Polymarket in Q1, generating $10.1 billion in volume as the constant cadence of global matches drove recurring engagement. The trend mirrors the broader sports-betting surge that lifted prediction market activity through late 2025 and into the2026 Super Bowl.
Politics generated $5 billion in Q1 volume, including $2.41 billion tied to geopolitics. Unlike past election-driven cycles, the report describes activity as continuously distributed across global news flow, with traders responding to real-time developments rather than discrete events.
Crypto remained the primary entry point for new users, accounting for roughly 40% of early activity. Familiar price action and 24/7 markets make it a natural starting category, though participation broadens as users return. Polymarket recently leaned further into that funnel, launching 5-minute Bitcoin candle markets while teasing a long-rumored POLY token airdrop.
“Prediction markets are becoming less about capital and more about consistent, repeated actions,” noted Bitget Wallet COO Alvin Kan. “What we’re seeing is a behavioral shift: the market is scaling with more taps per day, not bigger trades.”
Elden Mirzoian, director of growth and partnerships at Polymarket, said distribution is becoming as important as the underlying markets, citing the sector’s shift “from episodic trading to more continuous engagement.”
The report cites industry projections of $240 billion in annual volume by year-end 2026, with a longer-term trajectory toward $1 trillion.
Polymarket’s growth has accelerated through a series of structural catalysts. The platform secured CFTC approval to operate in the U.S. in November 2025 and rolled out its U.S. app shortly after, following a $2 billion strategic investment from Intercontinental Exchange. In March, it became MLB’s exclusive prediction market partner. Distribution has also broadened through a native integration in MetaMask, which began routing user bets to Polymarket late last year.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.