• Polymarket has a unique approach of operating with its blockchain-based prediction market where investors can bet on the outcomes of future events. 
  • Polymarket raised $4 million new funding on Oct.19, 2020, through Polychain Capital. Currently, the company has as many as 15 investors.
  • The website is still in the Beta stage. Besides, regulatory issues may crop up in the future.

Polymarket is a decentralized information-oriented market that is built on the foundation of Ethereum. Investors bet in this market on speculations regarding the outcome of real-world events. The affairs in this market are some of the major cryptocurrency development trends today.

Simply put, investors can bet on the most debatable topics in Polymarket. For example, investors resort to trading activity on COVID-19, election, and other current affairs through actionable insights and help people make better decisions.

Polymarket does not charge investors any fees; it does not keep investors’ money, and there are no trading caps. 

What investors win through trading are solely theirs to keep. With the help of Polymarket, investors can use their logic and insights to make money just by pressing a button. 

Investors can buy or sell “Outcome Shares,” which they can redeem for $1 if the outcome resolves as correct, and become useless if it is incorrect. People who hold outcome shares can sell their position at any time. 

Polymarket’s website is currently running the beta version and uses a Layer 2 solution to ensure scalability and free transactions for users.

The information markets are still transparent, non-custodial, and open source, where Polymarket does not play any role as an intermediary; it does not take any profits, and never hold investors’ funds.

How Polymarket Works

The main objective of Polymarket is to harness the power of free markets and collective knowledge to provide investors with an unbiased source of truth regarding significant events that will take place in the future.

Before betting on Polymarket, you need to have the following things:

  • An Ethereum wallet or a Coinbase account.
  • A debit/credit card, or USDC
  • Google Chrome Browser

1. Sign Up on the Polymarket Website

To start trading on Polymarket, the first step is to sign up. Currently, Polymarket’s website has a login process without a password for maximum security and easy usage. 

Even if you use an email, your Polymarket account will remain as your non-custodial crypto wallet, and only you have the keys to access it. Follow the steps below for signing up:

  • Click on the “Sign Up” button in green located in the top right corner, enter your email ID, and press enter. 
  • You will receive an email containing a link that will let you log in. Open the email on your computer or mobile phone and click the button that says “Log In to Polymarket.” 
  • Go back to the original Polymarket tab where you can log in. No hassles of setting or resetting passwords.

In case, you are signing up for the first time, you need to select a username, and can optionally enter a referral code. 

2. Deposit Amount

After signing up, you need to deposit USDC (A cryptocurrency by Coinbase) to begin trading. USDC is redeemable 1:1 against US Dollars. You can buy this cryptocurrency directly from Coinbase. 

Polymarket uses USDC to keep the market completely open-source, non-custodial, and transparent. 

Once you deposit USDC, it will work just like dollars, and you will not even feel that you are actually using blockchain technology. You can check the Deposit page by hovering the mouse over your User ID and clicking “Deposit.”

 3. Start Trading

Once you deposit USDC successfully, you can take the advantage of unlimited free trading in Polymarket. 

Click “Markets” in the top navigation bar, and then scroll down and browse various available markets based on Volume, Category, Liquidity, and others. 

An Example of Trading on Polymarket (Source: polymarket.com)

4. Keep Tracking Your Positions

You can track your position in the market in the following ways: 

  • You can check the related market page and click “Market Positions” below the graph.
  • You can click “Portfolio” in the navigation bar to view a list of all your positions.

5. Sell/Redeem Your Shares

You can redeem or cash out your winnings any time before market resolution.

Sell off your shares by going to the market page and identifying the “Buy” and “Sell” modal. You need to click “Sell.” Enter the number of shares you want to sell or click “Max” to sell all at once.  

Selling Shares on Polymarket (Source: polymarket.com)

You can also sell your shares by paying attention to the changes in the trade metrics after you enter the number of shares. Then click “Sell,” and confirm your sale.

After the market is resolved, and if your Outcome Share is correct, you can navigate to the market page and redeem your winnings by clicking the “Redeem Winnings” button placed at the bottom. 

To find out if a market has resolved or not, you can click the “Show Resolved” filter on the “Markets” page to see the resolved status.

6. Withdraw/Cash Out

You can withdraw/cash out your winnings by going to the “Deposit” page and clicking the “Withdraw” button below the “Current Balance.” 

Withdraw/Cash out through “Claim” (Source: polymarket.com)

You can initiate the withdrawal by mentioning the amount you want to withdraw and confirming the process initiation.

In nearly half-an-hour, the “Claim” button will display below the “Withdraw” button, and you can claim your amount. Remember that you can claim it any time once the 30-minute window is over. 

Who Funds Polymarket?

As many as 15 investors currently fund Polymarket. The investors include Naval Ravikant (former CEO of AlgelList), Balaji Srinivasan (former CTO of Coinbase), and Meltem Demirors (CSO of CoinShares). 

Other investors are Robert Leshner (CEO of Compound), Stani Kulechov (CEO of Aave), Kain Warwick (CEO of Synthetix), and others. Josh Hannah and Marc Bhargava are the latest additions to the list of investors.

On October 19, 2020, Polymarket raised new funding of $4 million through Polychain Capital. According to Polychain Capital’s management, they are fascinated with the potential of the information markets for some time, and this association is a step to enter the market. 

What is the Long-Term Vision of Polymarket?

Polymarket let investors bet on the current world events. The company’s business philosophy is that free markets are ideal for aggregating diverse information in real-time. It means people will be able to benefit from this market with their “educated opinion.”

According to Shayne Coplan (founder of Polymarket), platforms like blockchain, along with a generalized smart contract can develop markets on arbitrary topics, on which investors can easily trade. 

An investor can create a market on anything for a couple of dollars and avoid the bureaucratic risk. On Polymarket, investors bet on the outcomes of future events and earn profit from their prediction accuracy. 

This way, Polymarket intends to address the social media problem of aggregating correct statements and transform them into a “collective knowledge.”  

Before We Go

polymarket

Source: Pexels.com

Polymarket is still in the Beta stage, so the platform may not be bug-free just yet. The company suggests investors use Google Chrome, as it may not always work on Safari or Firefox.

While trading on this platform, if you encounter an issue, do not panic because you can always retrieve your funds from your wallet. In such cases, contact the customer care right away.