Written by: Bootly
If I had to summarize the market predictions for 2025 in one sentence, it would probably be:
This is the first year that market prediction has stopped relying on black swan events and started to rely on the demand for structured trading.
This was almost unimaginable in the past. For a long time, prediction markets have been more like an "event tool": they only become briefly active when major uncertainties such as elections, pandemics, or wars occur, and then quickly cool down. But in this year, high-frequency events such as sporting events, macroeconomic data, and policy changes have provided a stable trading rhythm for prediction markets, enabling them to exhibit, for the first time, operating characteristics close to those of financial exchanges , such as continuous liquidity, frequent trading, and clear settlement.
On the surface, this is a change in scale; but more importantly, it is a change in roles.
The prediction market is shifting from "betting on whether something will happen" to "how the market prices uncertainty." In other words, probability is no longer just a personal opinion, but is beginning to be treated as a price signal that can be repeatedly referenced, like interest rates, exchange rates, or stock prices.
The true size of the forecast market in 2025
The overall trading volume in the prediction market has seen orders of magnitude growth over the past two years. According to industry data from Dune & Keyrock, the monthly trading volume in the prediction market has grown from less than $100 million at the beginning of 2024 to a stable level of over $1 billion by the end of 2025, demonstrating explosive growth.
Taking leading platforms as an example, data from The Block shows that Kalshi 's transaction volume in November 2025 was close to $6 billion, with sports contracts contributing the vast majority of the transactions;
Meanwhile, Polymarket 's on-chain data and platform disclosures show that it also maintained monthly transaction volumes in the billions of dollars during several peak months in 2025.
The message behind these figures is clear: the prediction market no longer relies on "occasional big events," but has entered a stage where it can operate continuously in everyday environments.
The industry is gradually forming five major camps.
If you only look at transaction volume, it's easy to overlook the most crucial change in 2025— the platforms have embarked on completely different development paths .
For the average reader, this can be simply understood as: some platforms are trying to "become like exchanges", some platforms are trying to "make predictions lighter and more frequent", and some platforms are exploring "whether predictions can be embedded into everyday products".
These differences determine the form in which the forecasting market will exist in the future.
First camp: Compliance-based prediction market mainline – parallel competition of two paths
In 2025, the sign that the market will truly enter the mainstream financial discourse will not be the growth in trading volume, but rather the clear differentiation of compliance paths.
One path is the "local compliance, exchange-oriented route" represented by Kalshi. From the beginning, Kalshi chose to operate entirely within the regulatory framework of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), defining forecasting contracts as standardized event derivatives. In 2025, with the large-scale launch of sports contracts, its trading structure clearly evolved towards high frequency and short cycles, and its product form became increasingly similar to that of traditional financial exchanges.
Another path is represented by Polymarket. This is a more challenging route: after accumulating scale in its early stages by leveraging global liquidity, Polymarket completed a compliance restructuring in 2025, acquiring a licensed entity and obtaining regulatory approval to officially return to the US market. This makes it one of the few platforms in the industry that simultaneously possesses a global user base and US compliance status.
The difference between the two lies not in "compliance," but in the different accumulations made before achieving compliance. Kalshi's advantage lies in institutional certainty and local distribution capabilities; Polymarket's advantage lies in its established global liquidity and broader event coverage. They represent two different evolutionary directions for prediction markets within the regulatory framework.
Second camp: Crypto-native experimental platforms
Beyond the mainstream compliance path, there is still a type of platform that serves the function of trial and error and innovation .
Platforms like Opinion represent this camp, leveraging the native liquidity and community diffusion capabilities of the crypto ecosystem to achieve rapid growth. They are more aggressive in their event selection, often covering crypto policies, extreme assumptions, or highly controversial issues that mainstream platforms have not yet addressed.
The significance of these platforms lies not in their short-term scale, but in being the first to price highly uncertain issues . However, their transaction data largely comes from platform displays or third-party statistics, and has not yet entered a clear compliance framework; their long-term sustainability remains to be seen.
The third camp: high-frequency, exchange-oriented prediction markets
Platforms like Limitless are pushing prediction markets in a new direction.
Here, prediction is no longer an act of "waiting for results," but a high-frequency trading activity involving entering and exiting positions . Contract periods are deliberately shortened, settlement frequency is constantly increased, and user behavior is closer to that of short-term traders than event analysts.
This model blurs the lines between prediction markets and derivatives trading, and also suggests that regulators may need to address new product definition issues in the future.
Fourth camp: Embedded routes for wallets and super portals
The value of Myriad Markets lies not in trading volume, but in route selection.
Through integration with mainstream wallets, prediction markets are embedded into users' daily asset management processes. Users don't "enter a prediction market," but rather participate incidentally while viewing assets or completing interactions.
The long-term significance of this model lies in its extremely low customer acquisition cost and highly natural user conversion rate, which also means that the prediction market is shifting from "high-participation-cost behavior" to "routine, light-decision behavior".
The fifth camp: Public blockchains and content ecosystem-native information markets
Platforms like predict.fun attempt to present prediction markets as a native information application.
These markets spread through public blockchain ecosystems, incentivize participation through incentive mechanisms, and deeply integrate prediction behavior with content and community. Meanwhile, traditional media are also exploring similar directions, using prediction markets as an interactive supplement to news content rather than simply a trading tool.
Although this camp may find it difficult to compete with compliant platforms in terms of transaction volume in the short term, the product forms and participation mechanisms it explores may influence the way prediction markets are used and the content organization structure in the medium to long term.
Compliance is not about liberalization, but about setting boundaries.
In 2025, prediction markets were not "fully permitted".
A more accurate statement is that regulators have for the first time explicitly acknowledged that prediction contracts can exist as financial instruments, but have not relinquished control over their boundaries . While the federal government's stance is becoming clearer, state-level gambling regulations have become a new source of friction. This lack of complete consistency means that the prediction market will remain in a state of "scalability, but not uncontrollability."
For ordinary users, the most important cognitive shift in 2025 is that the prediction market is no longer just about "betting on whether you are right or wrong", but about "trading the market's pricing of uncertainty".
Prices reflect consensus, not facts; liquidity is often more important than opinions; profits come from poor judgment, not from the final result itself; and the greatest risks often come from rule changes, not from misjudgments.
Conclusion
Looking back at 2025, the real changes in the market weren't about which platform was more active, but rather a more fundamental question that began to be taken seriously:
Who has the right to price uncertainty?
Compliant platforms are setting boundaries, experimental platforms are exploring possibilities, and the true winner may not emerge until after 2026. What is certain is that prediction markets are no longer just gambling, but are becoming a tool to help people understand uncertainty . A report by Certuity predicts that the prediction market could reach $95.5 billion by 2035, with a compound annual growth rate of 46.8%.
2025 is just the beginning.
