Author: KarenZ, Foresight News
Profit-seeking has evolved into a sophisticated investment. However, in the star-studded prediction market arena, not all projects are worth investing time and money in.
Especially prediction markets, unlike zero-cost testnet tasks, usually require "real money" bets. Although the amount per bet is controllable, this "paid" barrier directly filters out a large number of script-based freeloaders and also brings the risk of principal depletion to real users.
If you are still struggling with which project to bet on in 2026, this article will help you analyze it from three dimensions: reasons for attention, degree of involution (competitive data), and cost-effectiveness of interaction.
Before you rush in, please read this "self-defense" guide: Regulatory risks. Do not participate with funds you cannot afford to lose. Prediction markets are susceptible to bot manipulation, manipulation, and insider trading. Participating in prediction market interactions requires you to have a certain level of judgment regarding news headlines, sports events, or crypto industry dynamics. Carefully review the judgment rules, including the source of information in the contract, whether the deadline includes the current day, and any wording traps. Blindly betting simply to generate interaction will likely result in the loss of your principal. Data from Hubble AI shows that "on Polymarket, the most active retail traders (mid-frequency traders), while having the highest win rate across the network, have a median actual return close to zero due to limitations in capital efficiency and a lack of systemic advantages." Hedging strategies can be tried: Avoid one-sided betting in uncertain prediction markets; try cross-platform hedging. Although there are price spreads and slippage, this minimizes the risk of one-sided betting, allowing you to focus on increasing trading volume. It is important to note that no trading strategy can completely eliminate risk; careful evaluation is necessary before implementation. Why is Polymarket worth paying attention to? Polymarket is a market leader in prediction; it has raised over $2.2 billion in total funding, including a $2 billion strategic investment from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. Matthew Modabber, Chief Marketing Officer of Polymarket, previously confirmed the POLY token and airdrop plan in October 2025. Polymarket has received CFTC approval to list in the US and is returning to the US market. Strong expectations are for a token launch and retroactive airdrop in 2026. How far will this go? With nearly 920,000 traders, the user base is enormous. Monthly active users have consistently exceeded 460,000 over the past three months, demonstrating stable user engagement. Weekly trading volume has surpassed $1 billion in recent weeks. The average number of transactions per active wallet per day surged from less than 10 in December 2025 to a peak of 23 in early January. Regarding average betting amounts, 20.69% of users bet less than $10 on average, 30.35% bet between $10 and $50 on average, 23.91% bet between $100 and $500 on average, and 0.24% bet over $10,000 on average. Is it worth interacting with? It's worth participating, but costs need to be strictly controlled. As a high-trading project, its potential airdrop size is extremely attractive. However, Polymarket's mature user ecosystem means that a large number of historical traders have already occupied a portion of the retroactive airdrop quota, and new users need to rationally assess the return on investment. In October 2025, according to Bloomberg, Polymarket was in early-stage talks with investors, planning to raise funds at a valuation of $12-15 billion, more than ten times the valuation four months prior, indicating a continued increase in the project's perceived value. Kalshi has raised nearly $1.6 billion in total. Its most recent Series E funding round occurred in December 2025, raising $1 billion out of $11 billion, with participation from Sequoia, a16z, ARK Invest, Y Combinator, and others. This represents a doubling of the valuation from the $300 million funding round in October 2025.
Regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Kalshi has not yet officially disclosed any token or airdrop plans. However, based on its recent expansion into the crypto ecosystem, community analysis suggests an airdrop is expected.
How far has it gone?
Cumulative notional trading volume has reached $30 billion.
Since August 2025, notional trading volume has been spiraling upwards, with recent weeks showing a steady growth momentum between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.
The total number of transactions is close to 130 million, placing it among the top prediction markets in terms of activity. Is it worth interacting with? Participation should be approached with caution; the cost-effectiveness is low. On one hand, the project lacks a clear timeline for token issuance and airdrops, leading to high uncertainty. On the other hand, Kalshi charges transaction fees, resulting in high costs for manipulating trading volume, and its mature business model has low demand for token incentives, limiting the likelihood of an airdrop. Why is Opinion worth paying attention to? Opinion is one of the fastest-growing prediction markets, with a growth rate significantly outpacing most competitors. Opinion was one of the projects selected for Yzi Labs' Q7 MVB Accelerator program in 2024. In March 2025, Opinion completed a $5 million seed round of funding, led by Yzi Labs. In December, the Opinion team announced that it had secured tens of millions of dollars in further funding. Opinion launched its mainnet in October 2025 and introduced an points system, clearly indicating its airdrop plans. How far will the airdrop go? Since October 2025, Opinion's cumulative notional trading volume has reached $15.3 billion, second only to Polymarket ($44.8 billion) and Kalshi ($30 billion). Opinion's current TVL exceeds $140 million. The cumulative number of traders exceeds 170,000. The number of daily trading users exceeded 40,000 in late December and early January, and has been between 10,000 and 20,000 in the last 10 days. Is it worth interacting with? While the volume is relatively small, the airdrop expectation is clear, and it has strong backing from YZi Labs. It's important to note that a weekly trading volume of over $200 is required to consistently earn weekly ranking points. Points are weighted across multiple dimensions, including limit order liquidity provision, trading volume, and holding time bonuses; a reasonable interaction strategy is necessary. Predict.fun is worth paying attention to. Predict.fun was selected for the second quarter of YZi Labs' EASY Residency incubation program in December 2025. Predict.fun is a native prediction market for BNB Chain incubated and invested by YZi Labs. Its founder, dingaling, faced controversy due to the failure of boop.fun and a "insider trading" scandal, and was criticized by Changpeng Zhao. However, they later reconciled, and the negative impact gradually subsided. Predict.fun integrates with the Venus protocol, allowing users to continuously generate returns while waiting for results after placing bets (applicable to some short-term markets). It features a points system and transparent airdrop predictions. To what extent has it become so popular? The cumulative nominal trading volume is $320 million, and the predicted trading volume exceeds $200 million. The cumulative number of transactions reached 478,000, with 36,000 unique trading users, averaging 13 transactions per user. Since mid-December, daily active users have mostly ranged between 2,000 and 4,000, indicating a relatively small user base. The current TVL is approximately $22.58 million. Is it worth interacting with? Low to medium tiers. Compared to Polymarket, where most bettors and institutions gamble, Predict.fun is mostly used for interaction-based betting. Strategies for accumulating PP points include trading on the platform, providing meaningful liquidity, and holding positions. Why should you pay attention to Probable? Probable is co-incubated by PancakeSwap and YZi Labs, with a legitimate background. Probable will launch its points program on January 12, 2026, but currently only points can be earned through invitations. There are no transaction fees. How much can you participate in? Since December 18, 2025, the cumulative nominal trading volume has reached $560 million, with a projected trading volume of $380 million. The cumulative number of users is 12,389. From late December 2025 to early January 2026, daily active users (DAU) ranged from 500 to 1000. DAU gradually increased starting in early January, with daily DAU exceeding 4000 on January 14th and 15th. The cumulative number of transactions is 834,357, averaging 67 transactions per user. The average transaction size is $425, and the average total transaction size per user is $3357. Is it worth interacting with? Low commission. Probable launched in mid-December and is currently in its early stages. Note that the referrer must first accumulate $100 in transactions to unlock and generate an invitation code. Furthermore, as a project incubated by PancakeSwap, its token will most likely launch through PancakeSwap's CAKE.PAD, and may even be directly listed on Binance.
XingChi
JinseFinance
Coinlive 
Cointelegraph