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Kalshi, Polymarket’s major rival, has heavily promoted its own efforts, including a partnership with market surveillance company Solidus Labs, as it seeks to distance itself from Polymarket and emphasize its credentials as the largest regulated platform in the US.
Kalshi bans what it calls “violent markets, including war and kidnapping”—although it does allow markets on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz—saying that markets should “not incentivize harm,” while it also requires proof of identity. In contrast, Polymarket does not require most users of its international site to provide proof of identity and allows payment using anonymous cryptocurrency channels.
Growing scrutiny has created a business opportunity for a wave of start-ups selling tools to help users profit by copying suspected “insiders.”
“The platforms are creating new rules to try to root them out and make it clear they don’t allow that activity. That to me [ . . . ] proves there is some informed flow in these markets worth following,” said Matt Saincome, chief executive of financial data provider Unusual Whales, which sells a $20-a-month “unusual predictions” tool to monitor suspicious bets on Polymarket.
Another start-up, Polywhaler, promises to help traders “monitor large bets in real-time” for $4.99 a month.
Polymarket has itself published a list of the 10 most-copied wallets in a blog post, including recommendations for traders on strategies to follow and pitfalls to avoid when copy-trading.
The company and Kalshi have long argued their platforms harness collective wisdom to accurately forecast events. But another recent study has found prediction markets reflect the “wisdom of an informed minority” rather than the “wisdom of crowds.”
Only 3 percent of all accounts generate the bulk of price discovery, according to a study led by Roberto Gómez Cram, assistant professor of finance at the London School of Economics.
These are traders whose accounts predict prices and react quickly to breaking news, making outcomes more accurate for markets on Polymarket, the platform studied by the researchers.
The rest do not “produce wisdom,” the study said, and therefore are more likely to lose money. Instead, they fund skilled traders by generating most of the volume, “but little of the information, and their losses flow as profits to the informed minority.”
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