Parsec Weekly #130
prediction markets mania
prediction markets mania
Prediction markets seem to be commanding a bunch of attention at present, seemingly out of nowhere. This doesn’t necessarily seem to be driven by a large increase in volumes on the platforms themselves but rather a renewed sense of excitement among market participants perhaps driven by the outperformance of prediction market related onchain coins and some notable press releases. Let’s dive in...
Polymarket fundraise
While this is not public news, I have heard along the grapevine that Polymarket recently raised at a $1bn valuation with secondaries already trading much higher.
The more public news in this regard has been Donald Trump Jr. making an investment in Polymarket and joining the team as a strategic advisor - certainly not something I had on my bingo card for 2025!
Kalshi on Solana
Recently we’ve seen Kalshi hiring for a “head of crypto” and that role being filled by CT extraordinaire mr John Wang.
John Wang was previously at Ventuals (a Hyperliquid ecosystem project building perps for pre-IPO companies with HIP-3). Part of me was hoping that this might lead down some form of a Kalshi<>HIP-3 type path but perhaps this was just wishful thinking with Kalshi announcing yesterday their commitment to “expanding prediction markets on Solana” with native USDC and SOL deposits.
New age prediction markets
Naturally this excitement and buzz surrounding prediction markets has born some new market entrants. A couple I am watching are Limitless on Base and Outcome on HyperEVM. Limitless are a little further along, currently on mainnet and conducting their first points season. Outcome on the other hand are quite a bit earlier and currently engaging in a testnet trading competition.
This week also saw the following announcement:
FORMER POLYMARKET AND KALSHI TEAM RAISE $15M FROM UNION SQUARE AND COINBASE TO BUILD AN ONCHAIN, PERMISSIONLESS, AND REGULATED PREDICTION MARKET: BLOCKWORKS
Competition is intensifying. In a similar fashion to a newly launched DEX, as a user, liquidity is often the biggest issue I have found with these newly launched prediction markets; the age old cold start problem!
Onchain prediction market coins outperforming
And yes, unsurprisingly, this uptick in attention has been accompanied by prediction markets related coins seeing some very strong moves. With the largest platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi being tokenless (for now!), most of the coins in this sector fall into the small-microcap range and as a natural consequence, tend to be of lower quality.
Unsurprisingly, the onchain runners here seem to be concentrated in both the Base and Solana ecosystems with coins like TRUE (Truemarkets) performing incredibly well;
While today’s weekly has been focused mostly on newer developments within the prediction markets sphere, I would be remiss not to mention our Polymarket functionality at parsec. It remains the premier choice for Polymarket wide analytics and I would strongly recommend checking it out if you are not already familiar: parsec.fi/polymarket
