Polymarket’s U.S. ban couldn’t stop American wallets from betting on politics — they still accounted for roughly $571 million in activity over the past year, new on-chain research shows.
On-chain analytics firm Allium traced about $571 million in political-market volume to wallets linked to the United States, making the U.S. the largest national cohort in its dataset (Hong Kong was second at $422 million). That activity persisted despite Polymarket’s attempts to block U.S. users from its offshore platform. According to Allium, Americans accessed the site using crypto wallets, stablecoins and location-masking tools.
Caveat: country tags were assigned to only about 6% of political-market wallets, so Allium calls the numbers “directional rather than exact.” Still, the findings highlight clear patterns in how U.S.-linked traders use the platform.
U.S.-linked traders skewed toward geopolitics and foreign-conflict markets. Geopolitics made up 46% of their notional volume versus 36% across Polymarket overall, while election markets were just 16% of U.S. volume compared with 32% platform-wide. The largest U.S.-linked market tracked by Allium was a novelty contract on whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would wear a suit; five of the 12 biggest U.S.-linked markets were tied to the Iran war. At one point U.S.-linked wallets placed 53% of their volume on a U.S. invasion of Iran, while the rest of the market wagered 26%.
Performance-wise, U.S.-linked wallets did not show a decisive edge: on resolved markets they backed the winning side 81.9% of the time versus 80.3% for other users. That suggests Americans traded boldly in some areas without reliably outperforming the broader user base.
The activity underscores a growing gap between offshore crypto prediction markets and regulated U.S. venues. Kalshi and Polymarket’s compliant U.S. arm generally list markets tied to elections, economic data and rate decisions; foreign-conflict contracts remain limited on regulated platforms. Allium’s results suggest that access restrictions have mostly shifted U.S. demand into offshore, crypto-native markets that are visible on-chain but harder for U.S. regulators to control.
That matters because Polymarket is already under mounting scrutiny. The CFTC has opened a broad probe into Polymarket’s business practices and social media conduct after questions from Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis, who urged an investigation into alleged misleading advertising and user-protection issues. Prediction markets also face state-level legal challenges: Wisconsin sued Kalshi, Coinbase and Polymarket over claims that their event contracts look like unlicensed gambling, and a Michigan court temporarily blocked Kalshi’s sports contracts for local residents.
Regulatory pressure isn’t limited to the U.S. — Europe’s ESMA warned Polymarket that some contracts could fall under existing financial rules, signaling tougher oversight across jurisdictions.
Polymarket’s growth has been rapid: sports and political betting around events such as the World Cup helped push its market activity into the billions. Allium’s report shows that bans and geo-blocks have not eradicated U.S. demand; they have only funneled a significant portion of that demand into offshore crypto markets that remain on-chain visible but outside straightforward regulatory reach — raising fresh questions about enforcement and consumer protections.
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