Original article | Odaily Odaily( @OdailyChina )
Author | Asher ( @Asher_0210 )
Crypto market sentiment has plummeted to extreme fear, while prediction markets continue to break activity records.
If you only look at the market trends, there's nothing exciting about the current crypto market.
Following last week's sharp drop in the crypto market, Bitcoin's rebound has been limited, and Altcoin as a whole continue to perform poorly, with a significant contraction in risk appetite. This is corroborated by changes in market sentiment: according to data from Alternative.me, the crypto market's Fear & Greed Index remained in the 25 (fear) range last month, but yesterday it briefly fell to 7 (extreme fear) . Even with a slight rebound today, the market remains in the "extreme fear" phase.
Crypto Market Fear & Greed Index
But against this backdrop, a completely different trend is emerging in a vertical market – the prediction market is heating up .
On-chain data shows that the weekly nominal trading volume of prediction markets has increased significantly in recent weeks. Although it declined slightly last week, it has remained at a historically high level for a long time, indicating that users' demand for prediction market trading has not decreased significantly as the market has cooled down. Instead, it has shown a more stable level of activity.
The core reason behind this is that the trading drivers of prediction markets do not rely on cryptocurrency price fluctuations, but rather on a variety of ongoing real-world events —from major sporting events such as basketball, football, rugby, tennis, ice hockey, and League of Legends, to macroeconomic policy changes, Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, US government shutdowns, and even entertainment topics, generating new trading targets almost daily. Because of this, compared to traditional cryptocurrency trading that relies on market cycles, the activity of prediction markets is more driven by "event streams," making them significantly less sensitive to market fluctuations and thus maintaining high participation and trading frequency even during periods of market downturn.
Predicting weekly market trading volume
The shift in user attention is also clearly visible. Nick Tomaino, founder of 1confirmation, recently stated that Polymarket's monthly visits continue to climb, while visits to Robinhood and Coinbase are declining, indicating that some trading and speculative demand is shifting from traditional trading platforms to event-driven markets.
Meanwhile, Kalshi's growth is even more tangible: its iOS app has now jumped to second place on the US App Store's free app download chart , second only to Coinbase, a particularly rare performance at a time when overall crypto market sentiment remains sluggish.
Apple App Store Free App Download Ranking
More importantly, prediction market projects are still on the eve of token issuance.
Many sectors in the crypto space share a common problem: by the time most people start paying attention, the tokens have already been issued, and the reward phase for early participants is essentially over. However, the prediction market is currently in the opposite position— user growth has already begun, while the token cycle is just starting .
The most attention-grabbing signal comes from Polymarket. Its parent company, Blockratize, recently filed a trademark application for "POLY," covering tokens and related financial services. It is understood that Polymarket management has confirmed a future launch and airdrop of its native POLY token, though the specific timing has not yet been announced. This suggests that the current surge in transactions and interactions surrounding the platform may still be in the early stages of a potential airdrop cycle.
Meanwhile, Opinion, the prediction market that has been the most discussed on BNB Chain recently, has launched an OPN token airdrop mission on Binance Wallet Booster, which is widely regarded as a signal that TGE is approaching. On the other hand, Opinion recently announced the completion of a $20 million Series A funding round , with participation from institutions such as Hack VC, Jump Crypto, Primitive Ventures, and Decasonic, which also reflects that investment institutions are making early moves in this field.
From a market perspective, the community is also paying close attention to Opinion's TGE performance. Data from Polymarket shows that the probability of a bet on Opinion exceeding $500 million in FDV on its first day of trading is currently as high as 76%, with a trading volume of nearly $4 million . Given the current sluggish performance of the altcoin market, this prediction remains highly probable, reflecting a general market expectation that the project may still receive strong price support in its initial launch phase.
"Opinion's FDV exceeded $500 million on its first day of trading" betting event
Driven by expectations surrounding Opinion's upcoming TGE, predict.fun, another prediction market on the BNB Chain with a high weekly transaction volume, has also seen a significant increase in community activity recently. Notably, project founder dingaling recently stated on the official Discord community that "there's still a lot to prepare," hinting at new developments to be announced this month, further increasing market attention to its future actions.
Screenshot of founder dingaling's reply on the official Discord page.
The period leading up to the World Cup may be the real boom period for prediction markets.
The Super Bowl, which started this morning, has already provided a very clear reference. On Polymarket alone, the trading volume of predictions related to the "Super Bowl champion" has exceeded $700 million, demonstrating the considerable trading volume generated by a single event.
But the Super Bowl is essentially just a domestic (most watched) event in the United States, while the World Cup is a catalyst of a completely different scale.
Compared to a single competition, the World Cup lasts longer, has more matches, and involves countries from all over the world. From the group stage to the knockout stage, new prediction market trading targets are generated almost daily: advancement probabilities, score ranges, knockout stage matchups, Golden Boot winners, and champion odds all continuously form new markets. This high-frequency event flow that lasts for several weeks often brings more stable and longer-term trading activity, rather than just short-term traffic peaks.
Therefore, if the Super Bowl has already proven that major sporting events can generate massive trading volumes for the prediction market in a short period of time, then the World Cup is more likely to become a key juncture in determining whether the overall user base and trading volume of the sector will enter the next stage.
I believe a surge of prediction market platforms offering TGE (Try Your Own Coin) trading will emerge around the time of the World Cup, making now perhaps the best time to position yourself. Personally, with the market in such a bleak state, buying Altcoin is less appealing than "betting" on prediction markets.
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A step-by-step guide to participating in predict.fun, supported by CZ.
