Polymarket's Back? Don't Get Your Hopes Up
Okay, so Polymarket's monthly volume hit $3.02 billion in October. Big whoop. They saw a spike in new markets and active traders too. 477,850 monthly active traders, to be exact. A 93.7% jump from September? Sounds impressive, right? But let's be real, numbers can be twisted to tell any story you want.
What's driving this sudden surge? Apparently, it's crypto bros sharing "strategies" to game the system. Liquidity providing, arbitrage, information asymmetry... Sounds like a fancy way of saying they're trying to fleece each other. And we're supposed to be impressed?
Fool Me Once...
Polymarket is planning a grand relaunch in the U.S. by the end of November 2025. Oh, and they're launching a native POLY token with an airdrop. Anyone else getting flashbacks to every other crypto pump-and-dump scheme? I mean, weren't these the same guys who got slapped by the CFTC back in 2022 and had to cough up $1.4 million? Now they're suddenly the good guys because the CFTC "softened" its stance? Give me a break.
Sentiment is "positive" because of the token release? Of course it is. Everyone's hoping to get rich quick from the airdrop. Last year, it was all about gambling on political and sports events. Now it's gambling on a token. What's the actual difference? It's still just digital crack for bored people with too much time on their hands.
And don't even get me started on Kalshi. They surpassed Polymarket's volume with $4.4 billion. And VC investors are drooling over them, talking about a $12 billion valuation. Are these people living in the same reality as the rest of us? This feels like 2021 all over again. Remember NFTs? Remember DeFi summer? I remember bagholders.
The Airdrop Mirage
The upcoming airdrop is expected to attract a ton of traders. Yeah, traders looking to flip their free tokens for a quick buck and then disappear. What happens after the airdrop? Will Polymarket still have those nearly half-a-million active traders? I doubt it.
Polymarket's monthly active traders had fallen as low as 227,420 in August 2025. See? It's a rollercoaster. Up, down, who cares? The only people who actually benefit from this are the founders and the VCs who get out before the whole thing implodes. The rest of us are just along for the ride, hoping we don't get burned.
Maybe I'm being too cynical. Maybe this time it's different. Maybe Polymarket really has found a sustainable business model. Maybe pigs will fly.
