MARKET ANALYSIS | Why Solana’s ‘Crypto Casino’ Shifted from Memecoins to Prediction Markets

Polymarket and Kalshi just posted their strongest month ever – even as Solana’s memecoin share sank to cycle-lows. Let’s walk through how liquidity flows appear to have rotated, and whether this marks a deeper shift in where crypto capital hunts for edge.

EXPLAINER: How to Make Bets and Earn $USDC Using the PolyMarket Prediction Market

Memecoins Fade

Last month, trading volume in Solana memecoins clocked in at $13.9 billion – the lowest monthly total since February 2024, before the memecoin mania took off.

To put it in context: memecoin volume on Solana reached a peak of roughly $169.5 billion in January 2025.

Since then, activity gradually decreased each month in 2025, from

• $34.4 billion in July
• $29.2 billion in August
• $19.7 billion in September
• $16.5 billion in October; down to
• $13.9 billion in November – a ~60 % drop from July 2025.

Notably, this wasn’t a sudden crash triggered by a hack or a major ‘rug-pull.’ Rather, the decline appears gradual – suggesting many traders deliberately moved capital elsewhere, instead of panic-exiting.

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Prediction Markets Surge

As memecoin activity waned, prediction-market platforms on Solana saw a steep rise. In November 2025, Polymarket recorded $3.7 billion in volume – its highest ever – while Kalshi posted $4.25 billion, its second strongest month. Combined, that’s nearly $8 billion.

That $8 billion represents 57% of Solana’s memecoin volume, and the gap is closing fast.

Compare that to earlier this year: as recently as August 2025, prediction markets represented under 10% of memecoin volume. By October 2025, that number was 45%, and now it’s crossed into majority territory.

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From Hype to Information — a Structural Shift?

Some in the crypto world, including Vitalik Buterin, frame prediction markets as “info finance” – a kind of infrastructure that aims to aggregate dispersed knowledge into probabilistic forecasts, rather than rely on hype or momentum.

In theory, that makes prediction markets more ‘useful‘ than memecoins: whereas memecoins often reflect no fundamental value and rely on social media hype or the next token drop, prediction markets allow traders to profit by leveraging superior information or analysis – whether about elections, macro-economic events, or other real-world outcomes.

There’s a narrative appeal: instead of ‘flipping the next meme token and hoping it moons,‘ traders can now bet on probabilities, potentially generating useful signals – or at least framing their activity as contributing to ‘price discovery‘ rather than just speculating.

PARTNERSHIP | Social Media Platform, X, Partners with Decentralized Prediction Markets, PolyMarket, to Help Audiences Contextualize Information

What Remains Uncertain

But this doesn’t automatically mean prediction markets are a perfect alternative to memecoins. For one thing, while volumes have grown, liquidity depth is still shallow compared with institutional markets — meaning large trades can still sway odds and probabilities.

Moreover, prediction markets remain vulnerable to manipulation: when contracts don’t attract broad participation, a single large actor can distort the outcome.

Finally, memecoins haven’t gone away. The $13.9 billion in monthly volume remains substantial – still dwarfing many other DeFi protocols on Solana.

What we’re seeing on Solana appears to be a deliberate rotation: liquidity and trader interest are moving away from the hype-driven, high-volatility memecoin casino toward prediction markets – where ‘information advantage‘ and event-based betting currently offer more perceived value.

Whether this is a structural evolution – one that will deepen with time and perhaps rival traditional financial markets – remains uncertain. But for now: the trenches have moved, and roughly $8 billion of capital followed.

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