TL;DR:
- Offshore financial flow: Users based in the United States channeled between $11 billion and $34 billion into international prediction platforms.
- Volume on Polymarket: The decentralized platform recorded activity attributable to U.S. investors of between $11 billion and $27 billion.
- Evolution of the regulated sector: Locally licensed companies processed $74 billion over the last 12 months, compared to $85 billion in the offshore environment.
A recent research report revealed that a significant number of U.S. investors continue to actively trade in offshore prediction markets that have access restrictions in that country.
The technical document, published by the analytics and political strategy consulting firm Crane Zeng, details that capital flows from the United States to these international platforms reached an estimated range of between $11 billion and $34 billion in traded volume.
Polymarket is currently the main destination for these funds globally. The data compiled by the consultancy firm suggests that the application structured on the Polygon network absorbed between $11 billion and $27 billion coming from U.S. activity, which is classified within the study as a conservative estimate based on metrics from the data analytics firm Dune Analytics.
This commercial phenomenon occurs despite the digital barriers implemented by companies in the sector to block local IP addresses. The report notes that protocols operating directly on the blockchain present greater technical accessibility to evade these geo-blocks due to the absence of strict identity verification policies and the intrinsic anonymity of cryptocurrency wallets. Other blockchain-based platforms such as Opinion, Limitless, Overtime, and Predict also recorded trading flows from U.S. addresses during the evaluated period.
Trading Dynamics and the Regulatory Oversight Framework
The evolution of market share shows a transformation in the distribution of global volumes over the last two years. In 2024, platforms structured outside the local jurisdiction concentrated 84.4% of an estimated annual volume of $16.8 billion. By 2025, the international share dropped to 60.9%, while the total volume of the industry expanded to $65 billion.
The analysis by Crane Zeng indicates that the total volume of the sector multiplied nearly fourfold between both annual periods.
In this context of expansion, regulated markets under the oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have managed to narrow the gap against transborder alternatives. Licensed U.S. firms, most notably Kalshi, Crypto.com, IBKR ForecastEx, and Gemini, recorded cumulative operations of $74 billion during the 12-month period analyzed by the consultancy firm.
Kalshi led the North American institutional environment by processing $70 billion of that global figure. In contrast, international environments accumulated a volume of $85 billion within the same timeframe. In this way, the share of platforms located abroad stood at 54% of the total market, showing a decline compared to the 84% dominance they held during 2024.
Industry growth estimates reflected in the report’s executive summary indicate that activity originating in the United States within markets not locally regulated could escalate to reach a projected annual volume of $133 billion by the year 2030, assuming that current relative shares between the regulated and offshore sectors remain without structural changes. Likewise, external forecasts prepared by the investment banking firm Bernstein in April of this year point out that the absolute global volume of the prediction industry has the potential to expand toward one trillion dollars by 2030, driven by a compound annual growth rate equivalent to 80%.
The CFTC ratifies that companies interested in attracting clients in that jurisdiction have the legal obligation to process and obtain a formal license as a Designated Contract Market (DCM). Therefore, those trading venues that lack such formal certification maintain an active access ban in the North American territory.
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