Prediction market platform Polymarket recently updated its official website's trading documents , showing that its "15-minute cryptocurrency price change market" has officially started charging transaction fees to takers. This indicates a change in Polymarket's long-standing zero-transaction-fee mechanism, but it is limited to specific short-term crypto markets, while most other markets still maintain a fee-free design.
Polymarket quietly updated, with the 15-minute crypto marketplace becoming the first to charge fees.
According to Polymarket's latest documentation, the platform has officially started charging transaction fees for the "15-minute cryptocurrency up/down market," and the fee is only charged to the taker.
The document shows that this system is not universally applicable, but is limited to the cryptocurrency market with high transaction frequency and extremely short cycles. Most other markets will continue to maintain the original fee-free design.
The purpose of the fees is clearly defined, ensuring that all of the order-taking fees are returned to liquidity.
According to the official explanation, the transaction fees charged to order takers are not retained by the platform as revenue, but are instead distributed daily in USDC to liquidity providers in the market, namely order placers (Makers).
Polymarket emphasizes that the core purpose of this mechanism is to establish a stable source of liquidity subsidies to support market quotes and depth, rather than to establish platform-level commissions or taxes.
Rate randomness changes, with the highest cost occurring in the 50/50 range.
Regarding the fee structure, official documents state that transaction fees will be dynamically adjusted based on market probability. When the market probability approaches 50%, the fee reaches its highest level; as the probability moves towards 0% or 100%, the fee drops rapidly, even approaching zero.
Based on the example provided in the document, if a trader buys 100 contracts at $0.50 per share, they will pay a transaction fee of approximately $1.56, which is slightly more than 3% of the transaction value, representing the high point of the overall fee curve.
Community reactions focused on the structure, interpreting it as a market mechanism adjustment.
Although Polymarket has not issued an official announcement, the change quickly sparked discussion on social media. Some market participants pointed out that this adjustment is more like a correction to the market structure than a simple fee increase.
Some users also believe that by rewarding the order placer with the order-taking fee, it can help reduce order-washing behavior and weaken the incentive for high-frequency trading robots to repeatedly wash orders in a zero-fee environment.
The actual impact is limited; the market is undergoing preliminary testing in the short term.
In terms of scope, this adjustment only applies to the 15-minute cryptocurrency price fluctuation market and does not cover political predictions, long-term event contracts, or other non-cryptocurrency related markets. Most markets that users frequently trade will remain free of charge.
Furthermore, even in markets where fees are already charged, small transactions are rounded off, resulting in relatively limited actual fees; when a transaction is clearly a one-sided bet with odds approaching extreme values, the fee rate will also decrease significantly. As for whether this mechanism will be expanded to other areas, the official statement has not yet been released.
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This article, "Polymarket Adjusts Trading Mechanism, 15-Minute Crypto Market Opens and Charges Order-Taking Fees," first appeared on ABMedia, a ABMedia .
