Polymarket reveals 295,000 market data! The truth about 63% zero trading liquidity

Polymarket 295,000 market historical data reveals a harsh reality: 63.16% of short-term markets have zero trading volume, with sports averaging 1.32 million USD daily and crypto only 44,000 USD. 505 super markets account for 47% of trading volume, while real estate prediction daily trading volume is only a few hundred dollars, exposing the cold start dilemma.

Short-term markets replicate MEME coin style crashes

Among the 295,000 markets, 67,700 have cycles less than 1 day (22.9%), and 198,000 have cycles less than 7 days (67.7%). This explosive growth in short-term markets is eerily similar to the MEME coin frenzy on Solana, with the key difference being that prediction markets have a defined lifespan, whereas MEME coins have an unknown lifespan.

In these ultra-short-term prediction events, currently 21,848 markets are active, with 13,800 having zero trading volume in 24 hours, about 63.16%. This indicates a large number of “zombie markets” on Polymarket, existing solely to fulfill platform diversity, not genuine market demand.

In terms of liquidity, over half of these short-term events have less than $100 in liquidity. Such a small capital scale cannot even support basic arbitrage opportunities, let alone complex trading strategies. Categorically, short-term markets are almost entirely dominated by sports and crypto predictions. The key is that these events have simple, mature judgment mechanisms, often involving 15-minute price swings of tokens or team win/loss outcomes.

Sports events dominate completely. The average trading volume for sports events with cycles less than 1 day on Polymarket reaches $1.32 million, while crypto predictions only $44,000. This also means that if one hopes to profit from short-term crypto trend predictions, there is simply not enough liquidity to support it.

Extreme liquidity concentration effect

When markets are divided by trading volume, it becomes clear that markets with capital accumulation ability (over $10 million) absorb 47% of total trading volume, despite having the fewest contracts, only 505. Meanwhile, markets with trading volume between $10,000 and $100,000 make up the majority, with a total of 156,000 contracts, but only 7.54% of total trading volume.

This extreme liquidity concentration reveals the true face of Polymarket: it is not a “predict everything” democratized platform, but a highly centralized market dominated by a few super events. For most low-attention prediction contracts, “going live and then zeroing out” is the norm. Liquidity is not evenly distributed like sunlight but is concentrated around a few super events spotlight.

Long-term market capital deposition logic

Political predictions dominate: The US political market has an average trading volume of $28.17 million, with an average liquidity of $811,000.

Long-termism prevails: Markets longer than 30 days have an average liquidity of $450,000, while those within 1 day only $10,000.

Crypto shifts to hedging: Long-term crypto predictions, such as “Will BTC break $150,000 by year-end,” become options hedging tools rather than short-term speculation.

On Polymarket, markets with cycles of 1~7 days number 141,000, while those over 30 days only 28,700. However, these long-term markets have accumulated the most capital. Large funds prefer to deploy in long-term prediction endpoints rather than participate in short-term battles. Except for sports, other long-term categories show extremely high average trading volume and liquidity.

Real estate predictions face cold start problems

Since Polymarket launched the US real estate prediction markets, the daily trading volume of this series is only a few hundred dollars, far less lively than expected. The actual market activity is much lower than social media discussions suggest. This reflects the “cold start dilemma” faced by new asset classes, especially niche and highly specialized categories.

Real estate participants require higher expertise and cognition, and currently the market is still in a “strategy search phase,” with retail participation lacking enthusiasm. The inherently low volatility of real estate further exacerbates this cold start problem—without event-driven volatility, speculative interest diminishes. Under these combined factors, niche markets face a situation where professional players have no counterparties, and amateurs dare not enter.

Emerging geopolitical sector

The growth trend of categories can be seen from the “current active / historical total” ratio. The highest ratio is in “geopolitics,” with only 2,873 total event contracts historically, but 854 active now, with an active rate of 29.7%, the highest among all sectors. This indicates that the number of new contracts in the “geopolitics” category is rapidly increasing and is one of the most concerned categories among prediction market users.

In summary, the liquidity analysis behind Polymarket shows that whether it is the “high-end casino” sports sector or the “macro hedge” political sector, capturing liquidity requires providing dopamine feedback or deep macro betting space. Those markets lacking narrative density, with overly long feedback cycles and lacking volatility, are generally difficult to survive in a decentralized order book.