— Polymarché (@Polymarket) August 7, 2024
As Polymarket noted on Twitter, Harris and Walz, as well as Donald Trump’s running mate, J. D. Vance (R-OH), are campaigning in Michigan.
Harris’ ratings on the site have increased since July 21, when Biden retired. At the time, his chances were 30%, compared to Trump’s 64%. By then, as Biden recovered from COVID-19 and rumors of his withdrawal were widespread, the president’s chances had already fallen to 7%.
Prediction markets like Polymarketplace present themselves as significant resources of opportunities and predictors of market sentiment, unlike public opinion polls. However, prediction market participants are self-selecting and Polymarketplaceplace, in particular, is heavily weighted in favor of cryptocurrency users, who use Polygon. a layer 2 scaling solution on the Ethereum blockchain.
Polymarket ratings temporarily react to breaking news, such as the Trump assassination attempt. Harris’ choice of Walz over Shapiro on Tuesday shows that prediction markets can fail.
The platform recently tapped noted statistician Nate Silver as its advisor. Silver’s former vote aggregator, FiveThirtyEight, is now owned by ABC as 538, while Silver publishes his own research as Silver Bulletin.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 17, 2024
Polymarket has noticed explosive traffic and popularity in recent weeks, largely due to the presidential race and American politics. In July, an incredibly chaotic month that included an assassination attempt on Trump and President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race: The site facilitated a record trading volume of $387 million, according to a Dune panel. This more than triples its June volume.
In fact, a week after August, Polymarket has already amassed $130 million in transactions.
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