DeFi researcher Ignas said Polymarket’s move toward perpetual futures is unsurprising, as the prediction market’s trading volume has stagnated and its active wallet count, open interest and number of trades have declined. According to Odaily, these declines have occurred despite heightened interest in the U.S. midterm elections.
Ignas said Polymarket’s users are mainly speculators and election-related trading volume is much lower than activity in sports and crypto markets. He said perpetual futures could help the platform generate more revenue from speculative users, but argued that Polymarket should focus on improving its prediction market product and leave perpetual futures to platforms such as Hyperliquid, Lighter and Variational. Ignas also said he is not currently including Kalshi in his data because of extensive wash trading on the platform.