{"id":33938,"date":"2026-07-06T10:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/polymarket-ban-fails-as-u-s-wallets-wager-571m\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T10:20:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:20:37","slug":"polymarket-ban-fails-as-u-s-wallets-wager-571m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/polymarket-ban-fails-as-u-s-wallets-wager-571m\/","title":{"rendered":"Polymarket ban fails as U.S. wallets wager $571M"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<p class=\"is-style-lead\">U.S.-linked wallets traded about $571 million in political contracts on Polymarket over the past year, according to on-chain research firm Allium.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_5242b5e0a96cd4e11b40a036584fd54c\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__nav tabs\">\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>U.S.-linked wallets led Polymarket political trading despite restrictions blocking American users from platform access.<\/li>\n<li>Allium said American demand leaned toward foreign conflict markets unavailable on regulated U.S. venues.<\/li>\n<li>The data adds pressure as Polymarket faces CFTC scrutiny and wider global regulatory attention.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>The figure made the United States the largest national group in the data, ahead of Hong Kong at $422 million.<\/p>\n<p>The activity came despite Polymarket blocking U.S. users from its offshore platform. Allium said the restriction has not stopped American-linked wallets from reaching the platform through crypto wallets, stablecoins and location-masking tools.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<p>Polymarket\u2019s U.S. ban failed to stop political betting, citing the Allium findings. The report said the data raises new questions about offshore market access and oversight.<\/p>\n<p>Allium <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allium.so\/reports\/us-traders-polymarket-biggest-political-crowd-despite-ban\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">said<\/a> it could assign country tags to only about 6% of political-market wallets. The firm said the numbers should be read as \u201cdirectional rather than exact,\u201d because wallet behavior does not identify every user with certainty.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Americans favor foreign conflict markets<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Allium report found that U.S.-linked traders did not mirror the broader Polymarket user base. Geopolitics made up 46% of U.S. notional volume, compared with 36% for the platform as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>Election markets made up only 16% of U.S. volume, compared with 32% across Polymarket. That means U.S.-linked traders focused more on foreign wars and diplomatic events than on election contracts.<\/p>\n<p>The largest U.S.-linked market was a novelty contract on whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would wear a suit. Five of the 12 largest U.S.-linked markets were tied to the Iran war.<\/p>\n<p>This demand points to a gap between offshore markets and regulated U.S. venues. Kalshi and Polymarket\u2019s compliant U.S. arm mostly list markets tied to elections, economic data and rate decisions. Foreign-conflict contracts remain limited under regulated U.S. access.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Regulation tightens around prediction markets<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The report lands as Polymarket faces new pressure in the United States. As crypto.news reported, the CFTC opened a broad investigation into Polymarket covering business activity and social media practices.<\/p>\n<p>The probe follows questions from Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis. The lawmakers urged the CFTC to investigate Polymarket over alleged fake advertising and user-protection concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Prediction markets also face legal fights at the state level. Wisconsin sued Kalshi, Coinbase and Polymarket, claiming their event contracts looked like unlicensed gambling.<\/p>\n<p>Kalshi has also faced state action. As previously reported, a Michigan court temporarily blocked Kalshi sports event contracts for local residents, raising the cost of state-by-state disputes.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Offshore demand remains visible on-chain<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Allium report does not show that U.S.-linked traders had better results than other users. On resolved markets, U.S. wallets backed the winning side 81.9% of the time, compared with 80.3% for everyone else.<\/p>\n<p>That means American-linked wallets traded more boldly on some markets, but they did not show a clear edge. At one point, they placed 53% of their volume on a U.S. invasion of Iran, while the rest of the market stood at 26%.<\/p>\n<p>The issue for regulators is not only trading performance. The larger concern is that blocked users may still reach offshore markets while remaining outside direct U.S. oversight.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, ESMA warned Polymarket over EU rules, saying some contracts may fall under existing financial laws. The warning shows that prediction markets now face tougher checks across several regions.<\/p>\n<p>Polymarket\u2019s scale has grown quickly. The World Cup turned Polymarket into a $5 billion market as sports and politics drove new activity.<\/p>\n<p>Allium\u2019s findings show that access blocks have not removed U.S. demand. They have pushed a large part of that demand into offshore crypto-based markets that remain visible on-chain but harder for regulators to control.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S.-linked wallets traded about $571 million in political contracts on Polymarket over the past year, according to on-chain research firm Allium.\u00a0 Summary U.S.-linked wallets led Polymarket political trading despite restrictions&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33939,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33938\/revisions\/33939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}