Polymarket and Kalshi continue to battle for supremacy with new partnerships and investment announcements.
After a slow ramp-up throughout 2025, the rivalry between Kalshi and Polymarket is intensifying, pushing cumulative prediction market activity to new highs, while volumes reach their highest levels since the 2024 presidential election.
September marked Polymarket’s highest volume month this year with $1.43 billion in volume, according to DeFiLlama. Meanwhile, Kalshi closed its best month yet, processing just over $3 billion in volume in September.
According to Dune Analytics, the week ending September 29 marked the prediction market sector’s highest seven-day volume stretch since the 2024 presidential election, with total volume of $1.45 billion, compared to $1.98 billion during election week.
Meanwhile, activity and unique transactions on prediction markets have hit new all-time highs for three consecutive weeks, led by Kalshi’s 3.4 million weekly transactions. The discrepancy between total volume and unique transactions suggests a higher proportion of low-value transactions, as opposed to election week, which featured massive bets on highly liquid markets.
There appears to be a significant development almost every week in the prediction market space, with today’s notable news being a $2 billion investment in Polymarket from the operator of the New York Stock Exchange, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
Although both market leaders are benefiting from the betting frenzy, Kalshi has reportedly taken a firm lead in the race. However, it is worth noting that Kalshi markets are not onchain, meaning their data is sourced from centralized APIs, as opposed to Polymarket’s decentralized infrastructure.
“I think the idea of “prediction market wars” is overstated. The total addressable market is so large that multiple players can succeed. This isn’t a winner-takes-all space. In crypto, there’s too much PvP energy when what we really need is cooperation. Both the Kalshi and Polymarket teams are excellent, and I believe each will thrive,” Marcin Kaźmierczak, the co-founder of RedStone, told The Defiant.
“Looking ahead, the convergence of oracles, AI, and prediction markets will unlock entirely new use cases. As these markets mature from speculative tools to essential information infrastructure, reliable oracle services become the backbone, ensuring accurate, transparent, and trustworthy outcomes…the golden age of prediction markets has truly begun,” he concluded.
Despite activity on both platforms surging, the rivalry between Kalshi and Polymarket continues, a trend that has been prevalent on social media since the company was outed for allegedly paying celebrities to target Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan on social media after he was raided by the FBI.
While its controversial past remains a point of contention, Kalshi has recently sought to extend an olive branch to the crypto community through its new marketing strategy, which features notable crypto influencers such as John Wang, IcoBeast, and 0xUltra. The specific nature of Kalshi’s partnership with said influencers is undisclosed at this time.
