Polymarket Was Just the Warm-Up: Bernstein Sees Prediction Markets Hitting $1T by 2030

Wall Street broker Bernstein is out here with numbers that make even the most bullish crypto degens raise an eyebrow, expecting prediction market volumes to moon their way to roughly $1 trillion by 2030. We're talking about an evolution from basement-dwelling niche wagering into broad-based information markets that'll have their fingers in sports, crypto, politics, and the economy. Basically, everywhere people have strong opinions and zero impulse control when it comes to being proven right.

For those keeping score at home, volumes hit $51 billion last year and are cruising toward about $240 billion in 2026, implying roughly 80% compound annual growth through the end of the decade. That's the kind of growth curve that makes traditional financial instruments look like they're stuck in the Stone Age. Put another way, if prediction markets were a token, everyone would already be calling it a parabola destined to crash.

Activity has already gone full send in 2026, with Polymarket and Kalshi recording combined year-to-date volumes of $60 billion. Just let that sink in for a moment. Two platforms are doing more volume than some established financial instruments. The crypto winter is officially over, and apparently, the prediction summer is just getting started.

"Increasing regulatory clarity at the federal level is expanding the addressable market, while blockchain-based tokenization and integration with crypto markets is enabling global liquidity, long-tail event creation and participation from institutions," wrote analysts led by Gautam Chhugani. Translation: the boring stuff is getting sorted out, which means the fun stuff can finally scale. Regulators clearing the path is basically the green light we've all been waiting for before going full degen mode.

Prediction markets have undergone the most accelerated glow-up since that one NFT project you definitely didn't FOMO into at the top. They've surged from a niche corner of crypto Twitter discourse and academic experimentation into a fast-growing segment of global trading activity in just a few years. Volumes have spiked alongside major news cycles, most notably the 2024 U.S. election, while platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi have expanded access beyond politics into sports, crypto and macroeconomic events