A small group of merchants could also be driving prediction markets, however an excellent smaller group is taking many of the cash.
A brand new report from blockchain analytics agency Solidus Labs finds that revenue focus on Polymarket is excessive, with fewer than 1% of wallets capturing roughly half of all positive aspects in key markets.
Throughout Polymarket’s politics markets between December 2025 and February 2026, simply 0.55% of worthwhile maker wallets captured 50% of positive aspects, the report finds, whereas 0.26% of profitable taker wallets accounted for almost the identical share. In greenback phrases, roughly $8 million of about $16 million in earnings accrued to every of these tiny cohorts.
The info sharpens an image already forming in educational work: a London Enterprise College and Yale paper, beforehand analyzed by CoinDesk, discovered that about 3% of Polymarket merchants drive most value discovery.
A small minority strikes the costs. A smaller minority retains the cash.
The distinction underscores a key level: focus doesn’t essentially suggest wrongdoing. Some merchants are merely extra refined, higher capitalized, or quicker to behave on info. However the report argues that the dimensions of the imbalance suggests a structural divide between a small group working with vital benefits and the broader base of members.
“The members capturing a disproportionate share of earnings are working in a unique league fully,” the report stated, pointing to capital depth, infrastructure, and execution methods which can be out of attain for many customers.
Solidus’ research additionally flags indicators of wash buying and selling, with roughly 15% of quantity in some markets displaying patterns in line with self-trading or economically impartial positions.
As a result of end result tokens in a binary prediction market sum to roughly $1.00, a dealer may purchase YES on each Trump and Harris inside the identical time window, register quantity on every leg, and end economically delta-neutral.
Solidus says this commerce has no equal in conventional finance.
A few of that quantity could also be incentive farming slightly than pure manipulation. It is extensively speculated that Polymarket’s upcoming $POLY airdrop will think about buying and selling quantity as a metric to allocate tokens.
Market surveillance gross sales pitch
Solidus will not be a impartial observer. The agency sells HALO, the surveillance platform whose output the report depends on, and not too long ago signed a deal to deploy that platform throughout greater than 4,000 markets on Kalshi, Polymarket’s largest U.S.-regulated competitor.
The info is onchain and verifiable. The framing — that prediction markets want surveillance infrastructure, ideally Solidus’s — is a part of the pitch.
That does not change the underlying numbers. It does counsel studying them with a hand on the pockets.
If earlier analysis confirmed {that a} small minority strikes these markets, the newest knowledge level to one thing sharper.
If earlier analysis confirmed {that a} small minority strikes these markets, the newest knowledge suggests an excellent starker conclusion: an excellent smaller group persistently wins them.
