60% of Polymarket Traders Are Crypto Newbies

• A Bitget Wallet study reveals 60% of active Polymarket users had no prior onchain trading history
• As a decentralized and crypto-native prediction market, the platform allows users to wager on real-world outcomes without deep blockchain knowledge
• This event-driven approach is establishing prediction markets as a primary onboarding gateway for mainstream crypto users

A new study reveals that 60% of active Polymarket traders are completely new to cryptocurrency, using the prediction market as their front door to the blockchain ecosystem.

A report by Bitget Wallet, which surveyed 857,000 active Polymarket traders over a 90-day span, indicates that 60% of them had never traded onchain—meaning transactions verified and stored directly on a blockchain—prior to funding their accounts with the yes/no exchange. This shift highlights a major trend, as the decentralized, crypto-native prediction market is effectively acting as an accidental onboarding ramp for the broader crypto ecosystem.

Prediction markets are increasingly functioning as an entry point into crypto rather than a niche trading category, with users now entering onchain activity directly through application-level interfaces instead of decentralized exchanges or decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols,” observes Bitget Wallet.

Kalshi, the largest U.S. prediction market operator, is centralized, though it has significant cryptocurrency inroads in its own right.

Potentially Good News for Polymarket

By both market share and private market valuation, Kalshi tops Polymarket, but the latter’s crypto-first, DeFi posture is proving to be an asset.

The research arrived around the same as reports suggesting Polymaket topped $1 billion in annualized revenue. Polymarket runs on the Polygon network, but data indicate the bulk of the prediction market’s liquidity is sourced via Ethereum-based chains.

“This suggests prediction markets are not simply a new crypto trading vertical, but an application-led onboarding mechanism, where users begin with real-world questions and only later interact with underlying financial infrastructure,” notes Bitget.

Prediction Markets Onboarding New Crypto Users

Some experts view prediction markets as a new frontier for cryptocurrency usage — a perspective validated by the Bitget Wallet findings. As Biget Wallet COO Alvin Kan points out, prediction markets are increasingly the first form of crypto exposure for many traders.

Potentially bolstering the cryptocurrency/prediction market intersection is the point that new traders don’t need to be blockchain or DeFi proficient prior to participating in prediction markets. The lack of intimidating customer-facing infrastructure can foster longer-lasting relationships between traders and platforms such as Polymarket.

“As a result, prediction markets appear to be evolving into one of the first scalable consumer onboarding layers for crypto, where blockchain infrastructure becomes increasingly invisible and user interaction is defined by real-world outcomes rather than financial primitives,” concludes Bitget Wallet.