on the crypto
In just over three weeks, trading volume on the decentralized Polymarket betting platform went from zero to nearly $ 3 million.
DeFi bets on US elections attract new users outside the industry
This week, in just two days, the wager "Will Trump win the 2020 US presidential election?" Polymarket has placed bets worth over $ 2,8 million, with each bet (possible “yes” or “no” answers) costing less than a dollar.
The platform allows users to place crypto bets on current events and hotly debated public topics, including politics, pop culture, business and health, according to the official website. Polymarket is a no-custody platform, which means it does not hold or store users' funds and bets can be placed in the dollar-backed USDC stablecoin.
I prediction market, where users can bet on the outcome of future events, is a key application of decentralized finance (DeFi), which allows users to conduct financial transactions on a blockchain without an intermediary.
Elections and political debates attract a large number of traders to these platforms. But the election also appears to be attracting new users to crypto betting platforms.
“There are people on these platforms who are not native users of the crypto industry. They don't even fully understand cryptocurrencies, but they use Polymarket, ”said Shayne Coplan, founder of Polymarket.
A growth destined to remain
Anonymous crypto betting platform YieldWars launched its election bets on Monday, and within hours it recorded over $ 50.000 worth of bets. Users can stake the platform's native WAR token or ETH.
YieldWars co-founder Owl said the sudden increase in volume is anything but shocking given the size and importance of the election. Owl also said that YieldWars may have found "the secret ingredient" to keep people interested in betting by creating Battle Royale-style betting tournaments ideal for sporting events. The election battle is a one-time battle, in which two pools are running at the same time, one in each currency.
What will happen after the elections
The platform partnered with Everipedia to use Associated Press (AP) election data for its election betting marketplace. In October 2020, the well-known AP service partnered with Everipedia to create Oracle, an immutable ledger of 2020 election results distributed on a blockchain.
“I don't think there can be a more reliable source than the AP and since Oracle was built using the Chainlink infrastructure, it made sense to choose this option,” Owl said. Now the expectation is rising that the US elections will increase betting volumes for the future.
According to Coplan, the demand in blockchain-based betting markets has always been there. “It was clear that there was a lot of demand for it. I would say that the demand has actually materialized in the last two weeks. However, these are only the very first few days, ”Coplan said.
