CryptoSlate
Kalshi's institutional trading volume rose 800% over six months alongside the platform's first customized block trade, and combined monthly volume across Kalshi and Polymarket climbed from $7.2 billion in January to roughly $14 billion by June, according to DefiLlama data. Hedge funds and asset managers are now pairing contracts tied to scheduled economic releases, such as monthly payroll data, with offsetting positions elsewhere in the portfolio, while Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder at RedStone, framed the structure to CryptoSlate as a desk exposed to a specific outcome — a rate decision, a regulatory ruling, or a named corporate event — that can take an offsetting position paying out precisely when the adverse scenario hits.
Why it matters
Eneko Knorr, chief executive of Stabolut, said that buying a contract tied directly to a bad event removes the guesswork of estimating how that event ripples through a portfolio through proxies and correlations, and pointed to Hyperliquid's adoption among professional traders as evidence that decentralized trading tools are already displacing parts of traditional infrastructure. His enthusiasm carries an immediate condition: large asset managers will not accept a system in which a wealthy participant can effectively buy the outcome, because a corporate hedge protects the real balance sheet and considerably raises the cost of a bad resolution.
Market impact
The path to institutional scale runs through three structural gaps the article lays out. Liquidity risk: some top Polymarket markets hold only about $30 million in total liquidity, meaning a corporate-sized hedge can still move the price against itself. Basis risk: a market exceeding $60 million, asking whether Strategy sold Bitcoin by May 31, resolved "No" even though the company's own securities filing confirmed a 32 BTC sale during the May 26-31 window — a clean example of contract wording diverging from economic reality. Resolution risk: Polymarket settles disputed outcomes through UMA's Optimistic Oracle, and Bloomberg reported that nine wallets accounted for roughly half of all UMA tokens used in Polymarket dispute votes over three years, out of more than 6,400 accounts that had participated in at least one dispute. Kazmierczak's proposed fix is markets built around a precisely defined, verifiable data source, leaving a vote with almost nothing to interpret because the answer comes from the data; the CFTC's June 10 draft rules and Kalshi's June 9 employment-disclosure and whistleblower portal move point in the same direction.
Frequently asked questions
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How fast are prediction markets pulling in institutional flow?
Kalshi's institutional trading volume rose 800% over six months alongside the platform's first customized block trade. Combined monthly volume across Kalshi and Polymarket climbed from $7.2B in January to roughly $14B by June, per DefiLlama data.
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Why would a corporate desk use a prediction market instead of a regular hedge?
A prediction market contract pays out on a specific named event — a tariff taking effect, a regulation passing, a court blocking a product — skipping the proxy-correlation guesswork of using currency or commodity instruments. Marcin Kazmierczak of RedStone framed it as a desk exposed to a specific outcome taking an…
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What is basis risk in a prediction-market hedge?
Basis risk is when the contract's wording diverges from the economic reality it was written to track. A market exceeding $60M, asking whether Strategy sold Bitcoin by May 31, resolved "No" even though the company's own securities filing confirmed a 32 BTC sale during the May 26-31 window — a clean example of…
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How does Polymarket settle disputed outcomes, and why is that a concern?
Polymarket uses UMA's Optimistic Oracle, where any participant can propose a resolution, dispute it, and the final decision is determined by a token-weighted vote among UMA holders. Bloomberg reported that nine wallets accounted for roughly half of all UMA tokens used in Polymarket dispute votes over three years, out…
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What would make prediction markets trustworthy enough for corporate treasuries?
Kazmierczak's proposed fix is markets built around a precisely defined, verifiable data source so a vote has almost nothing to interpret. The CFTC's June 10 draft rules and Kalshi's June 9 employment-disclosure and whistleblower portal move point in the same direction — standardized block execution, narrower contract…
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