Trading craze doubles, Polymarket will explode in 2024
The decentralized prediction platform that attracted the most attention last year was none other than Polymarket. Although it has been officially launched for four years, it did not really become popular until 2024, mainly because the U.S. election entered a white-hot period, and the showdown between Democrat Harris and Republican Trump continued to increase the popularity. According to statistics, this "Presidential Election" betting market alone attracted more than US$3 billion in trading volume, accounting for 30% of Polymarket's total trading volume of US$8 billion in 2024.
Source: Polymarket’s “U.S. Presidential Election” betting market attracted more than $3 billion in trading volume
At the same time, in order to attract more users, the platform continues to launch a variety of betting themes, even ridiculous ones, covering entertainment, space exploration, celebrity comments, etc., which indirectly shows the endless potential of human beings in "prediction" and "speculation" Creativity. The following are the 8 most "weird" gambling markets in 2024, reflecting a crazy and imaginative collective gambling culture.
From "Will Trump say 'tampon'" to "Is the Earth flat?"
In terms of weirdness, probably no one is more topical than the combination of Trump and Musk. In 2024, Polymarket observed a large number of users betting around "whether Trump will mention certain keywords in public", such as "will Trump talk about "tampons" "", "Will "Brat" appear in the speech", etc., although they seem meaningless, they still attract hundreds of thousands of dollars in bets. There are even people betting on "whether the earth is flat", with a trading volume of more than a thousand US dollars accumulated in just a few weeks. Obviously, in the online world, as long as it can be designed as a "yes or no" question, it can almost be turned into a betting market, which further highlights the human nature of gambling on everything.
Of course, there have also been many predictions that are closely related to celebrities, such as whether the "eccentric" Hawk Tuah Girl will interview Trump, but in the end no official news has been received; or whether Musk will be identified in an HBO documentary "Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin". It is worth noting that although Musk has repeatedly appeared on the topic of entanglements with cryptocurrency since 2018, the betting market on Polymarket finally showed that "Musk is not Satoshi Nakamoto", and the investment inflow of more than 3 million US dollars also turned into Buoyang, these exaggerated cases make people see the strong gambling spirit on the one hand, and lament on the other hand that "the more bizarre it is, the more people will end up."
The "Top 8" Bizarre Betting Boards
Looking back at all the weird topics at Polymarket in 2024, here are the 8 most “surprising” bets:
1. "Will Time Magazine's Person of the Year be awarded to AI?": Some investors spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this, but unfortunately, Trump won the honor for the second time and AI failed to "qualify."
Source: Polymarket
2. "Will the United States confirm the existence of aliens?": This bet made many people excited, and the cumulative trading volume approached US$3.54 million. In the end, of course, it could not be confirmed, and the market settled on no.
Source: Polymarket
3. "Is there a chance Hawk Tuah Girl will record a podcast with Trump?": The final market settlement was no, but before the results were announced, more than $40,000 in bets had been taken away.
Source: Polymarket
4. "Whether the words Crypto or Bitcoin will appear in the "Declaration" against Luigi Mangione": It is also incredible. In the end, no clues were found, and the bet finally came to an end.
Source: Polymarket
5. "What would Trump say in an interview with Musk?": Who would have thought that a "tampon" would allow a user to earn 14 times the profit, highlighting the high risk and high profit of niche topics.
Source: Polymarket
6. "Betting on whether the earth is flat": It seems that there is no suspense, but more than a thousand US dollars actually entered the market. The final result is obvious, and it comes down to "no".
Source: Polymarket
7. "Musk's posting frequency": Investors are eager to count the number of posts posted by the billionaire every day, and more than 30 betting markets have been launched continuously.
Source: Polymarket
8. "Documentary Speculation on Satoshi Nakamoto's Identity": Some people bet $3 million on the belief that HBO will reveal Musk as Satoshi Nakamoto, but the final market settlement was "other/multiple".
Source: Polymarket
Behind the Madness: The Reflection of Trading Platforms and Human Nature
When broken down, some of these incredible bets only resulted in big wins for a few people, while others easily returned to zero with the outcome of the event, proving the depth of human gambling. Polymarket has achieved an annual trading volume of US$8 billion, showing that "small topics can also make a fortune, and shocking things are more tempting to make bets." In fact, many popular betting markets have no substantial basis at all, and are even difficult to produce substantial predictive significance. However, they carry netizens' curiosity about contemporary topics and their adventurous mentality of "even if it is ridiculous, they are willing to try their luck."
It can be seen that the reason why Polymarket has become so popular is that, on the one hand, it reflects the combination of blockchain and online gaming, which brings faster, cross-border transactions and interactions; on the other hand, it also affects "the public's interest in celebrities, gossip, and rumors." There is a certain psychological mechanism of excitement and expectation. For investors or participants, these bets may be just a "little fun", but they also echo the collective fanaticism and "try your luck" mentality of human nature in the era of information explosion. In the future, Polymarket and even other prediction platforms will probably continue to introduce new ones, and various "more bizarre and more fanatical" gambling topics may be ready to go. It seems that these "weird betting markets" in 2024 are just the beginning, and maybe we will see more exaggerated topics next year.
"Human beings are strong-willed!" Taking stock of the 8 weirdest gambling markets in Polymarket 2024, you can bet on anything." This article was first published in "Crypto City"