Prediction market boom finds a new challenger with Asia roots

[SINGAPORE] A little-known prediction market platform with Asia roots burst onto the scene late last year, but already its fast start appears to be running out of steam.

Opinion Labs debuted in October and within weeks began recording notional trading volumes rivalling those of market-leaders Polymarket and Kalshi, according to user data compiled by Artemis Analytics.

To compete, Opinion uses a crypto-oriented incentive system that rewards loyal customers for their patronage. Opinion processed almost US$2 billion of trades in the week ending Jan 25, surpassing Polymarket and just shy of Kalshi’s total in the same period, the data show. But now the flywheel is faltering: Opinion’s US$604 million of trades in the week ending Feb 22 were less than half the volumes seen by Polymarket and Kalshi.

Opinion did not respond to questions from Bloomberg News about its trading volumes.

Prediction markets give punters a platform for betting on just about anything, from regime change to the outcome of the Super Bowl. They have grown quickly over the last year, drawing in traditional financial firms including CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange, while earning Kalshi and Polymarket valuations of around US$10 billion.

The platforms have faced criticism for making it possible to bet on things that used to be outside the realm of speculation, including matters of life and death, such as war.

Most of the growth has happened in the US, where regulators recently opened the door to these new financial contracts. That has led to interest in whether the same idea might take off overseas.

Opinion is an upstart backed by YZi Labs, the family office of Changpeng Zhao, co-founder and former chief executive officer of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. YZi Labs backed Opinion in August 2024 as part of an accelerator programme for BNB Chain, a blockchain with close ties to Binance.

Like Binance in its early days, Opinion has gained a foothold in Asia. About 42 per cent of its web visits came from the region in January, compared with just 19 per cent and 7 per cent for Polymarket and Kalshi, respectively, according to Similarweb data.

Kaviish Sethi, a data engineer at Artemis Analytics, said the Asia skew is a direct result of Opinion’s links to the Binance universe, “which puts it in an ecosystem that already has large, highly active retail communities in Asia.”

Binance did not respond to a request for comment. YZi Labs had no comment.

Opinion’s contracts, too, have a strong regional flavour. Users are currently wagering on the Chinese Grand Prix, when Japanese cherry blossoms will fully bloom and the outcome of Korean local elections.

Token rewards

For early traction, Opinion deployed a points system that may translate to rewards denominated in digital tokens for its most active traders. But that same system brings with it the risk that growth could suddenly peter out.

“Points programmes often drive inorganic, reward-driven volume that can drop sharply once incentives end,” Sethi said.

In the 30 days to Feb 25, Opinion’s volumes fell about 47 per cent to US$4.14 billion, while volumes on Polymarket and Kalshi grew 15 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively, according to Artemis Analytics. Sethi said Opinion’s top-10 volume traders as at Jan 19 accounted for roughly half the decline. He could not pinpoint a reason for their retreat. Opinion’s website suggests the rewards programme is still active.

“Opinion’s reported volume may reflect a large share of repeated trades rather than genuine net positions,” Cho Junkee, an analyst at SK Securities wrote in a report published in January about the three biggest prediction markets.

The recycling of capital – repeatedly buying and selling the same contracts – to harvest points may result in artificially inflated volume that is not a true reflection of economic activity, he added.

A better gauge is “turnover ratio”, which weighs weekly traded volume against open interest. For Opinion, it was at 15.32 as of the week of Dec 29, compared with 4.25 on Polymarket, according to Junkee’s report.

Similar concerns have been raised over Polymarket trading. A study by Columbia Business School posted in November found that artificial trading on the platform accounted for an average of 25 per cent of all buying and selling over the past three years. Many active traders hoped to improve their odds of getting access to a proprietary digital token that Polymarket has said it may release, the researchers said. Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment.

Such tokens are typically distributed via so-called “airdrops” that serve as a reward for early adoption.

A report by blockchain security and intelligence platform Certik-Skynet in February predicted that the “triopoly” of Polymarket, Kalshi and Opinion would likely persist in 2026, but the authors wrote that Opinion’s ability to retain users after any airdrop is a key variable.

Asia focus

Its geographic edge is, for now at least, what Opinion is focused on preserving. The company announced raising another US$20 million in early February in a round featuring crypto-native investors Hack VC, Jump Crypto and Primitive Ventures. Dovey Wan, founding partner of Primitive, said Opinion’s regional focus is among its key strengths.

Opinion said that it would deploy the funds to “deepen its foothold in Asia-Pacific”, where its platform “already dominates regional event liquidity.” The firm will also look to expand globally ahead of the 2026 World Cup and upcoming elections, it added.

“Opinion has very strong local cultural instinct that can keep their mid-to-long-term market really lively,” Wan said. “We want to back the underdogs.” BLOOMBERG