A tiny group is winning on Polymarket as under 1% of wallets take half the profits
After research showed a small minority moves prices, new data suggests an even smaller group captures roughly half of all gains
What to know:
- A new Solidus Labs analysis finds that fewer than 1 percent of Polymarket wallets captured about half of all profits in key political prediction markets between December 2025 and February 2026.
- The report suggests a structural divide in prediction markets, with a tiny cohort of well-capitalized, technologically advanced traders consistently out-earning the broader user base.
- Solidus also flags signs of wash trading and possible $POLY airdrop farming on Polymarket, even as it uses the on-chain data to promote its own market-surveillance platform.
Across Polymarket’s politics markets between December 2025 and February 2026, just 0.55% of profitable maker wallets captured 50% of gains, the report finds, while 0.26% of winning taker wallets accounted for nearly the same share. In dollar terms, roughly $8 million of about $16 million in profits accrued to each of those tiny cohorts.
The data sharpens a picture already forming in academic work: a London Business School and Yale paper, previously analyzed by CoinDesk, found that about 3% of Polymarket traders drive most price discovery.
A small minority moves the prices. A smaller minority keeps the money.
The contrast underscores a key point: concentration does not necessarily imply wrongdoing. Some traders are simply more sophisticated, better capitalized, or faster to act on information. But the report argues that the scale of the imbalance suggests a structural divide between a small group operating with significant advantages and the broader base of participants.
