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Election Day Surge Drives Polymarket to New Records

Article by André Beganski

With U.S. voters hitting the polls Tuesday, a flurry of bets in the twilight of the 2024 race pushed Polymarket’s total open interest to a record-breaking $463 million on Election Day.

Representing the total value of positions held on the blockchain-based prediction platform, the measure had jumped 40% over the past week from $329 million, according to a Dune dashboard. Meanwhile, much of the platform’s activity had centered on America’s imminent choice between former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris.

Over $249 million was actively riding on the U.S. presidential election’s winner as of Tuesday, rising 50% from $163 million over the past week. However, whether Trump’s 62% odds of victory would prove accurate was an open question, with millions of ballots yet to be cast and tallied.

Letting the free market weigh in on one of the country’s most pressing questions this year, Polymarket and other prediction platforms have exploded in popularity. Though Polymarket launched in 2020, Tuesday could be remembered as one of its most defining moments, as statisticians including Polymarket advisor Nate Silver have called the outcome a coin toss.

At its core, Polymarket has been portrayed as a new format for assessing current events by its 26-year-old founder and CEO Shayne Coplan. Building a product on crypto rails that’s become a growing part of America’s political dialogue, he wrote on Twitter Monday that Polymarket’s presence is “unquestionably here to stay,” while highlighting its rising Apple App Store ranking.

Some may be glued to Polymarket’s app as a political gauge moving forward, but open interest could be a different story. During the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Polymarket’s open interest continued climbing until Joe Biden was inaugurated, and then it collapsed to $15 million from $33 million, according to a separate Dune dashboard.

Polymarket has been hit with only four days of net outflows in the past two months, growing strongest when traders yanked $30 million from the platform in mid-October, according to DefiLlama. Other than that, inflows have been consistent as bettors flock to the platform.

As the 2024 race entered its most pivotal phase, Polymarket registered its best day in terms of trading volume. The platform has logged nearly $174 million worth of trading volume so far Tuesday, per data from Dune, compared to the previous peak of $161 million on Monday.