World Cup prediction markets on blockchain hit $20 billion in trading volume

Chainalysis says trading on blockchain prediction platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi tied to the World Cup reached $20 billion. For PSPs and other high-risk payment providers, the interesting part is not the football itself but the scale: this is a betting flow sitting outside classic sportsbook rails, yet moving money at sportsbook-sized volumes.

1. Out of that $20 billion, about 63% of all prediction-market activity during the qualifying rounds and the tournament itself was linked to World Cup contracts. Over the five-week World Cup, users placed about $5.7 billion in bets.
2. Activity started early. During qualification, daily betting volume held around $50 million and, in especially active periods, crossed $100 million. Once the main tournament began, daily volume jumped to $250 million and kept rising. The peak came during the final, when blockchain bets on the Spain–Argentina match topped $300 million.
3. The market was not only about the match result. One niche market asking whether Cristiano Ronaldo would cry at the end of his World Cup run drew $49 million.
4. Chainalysis said 55% of users across all World Cup-related markets finished in profit, and 79% of those profitable users were experienced platform participants.
5. The analytics firm said participants came from every continent except Antarctica. The top trading countries were the United States and China, followed by Canada, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. Most of the money came from residents of countries whose teams qualified for the tournament: $17.6 million, versus $6.6 million from wallets in other countries. In total, more than 400,000 wallets took part.

Bloomberg earlier reported that blockchain prediction platforms accounted for 27% of the U.S. sports-betting market during the World Cup. It also cited a different figure for World Cup markets overall in 2026: $50 billion, with Kalshi as the largest blockchain platform at $40 billion in trading volume during the tournament.