Polymarket Cuts Staff After Investor Pressure
Polymarket is restructuring under investor pressure, while Kalshi keeps pulling ahead in trading volume. At the same time, the battle over prediction markets is getting tougher because of oversight and compliance.
Key Takeaways
- Polymarket cut jobs and ended contracts during an internal restructuring under pressure from investors.
- The company confirmed the move, but did not say how many employees were affected; more than half were contractors.
- Polymarket is now trailing Kalshi in monthly trading volumes, while competition in prediction markets keeps heating up.
Polymarket cut jobs and ended contracts as the company reshapes its organization under pressure from investors. At the same time, Kalshi is pulling further ahead as a competitor in prediction markets. The sector is drawing more attention, but Polymarket first has to get its own house in order.
Staff Reduced
Polymarket confirmed the move, but did not say how many people were affected. According to Bloomberg, it involved a mix of new hires, staff changes, and letting employees go. The company also confirmed that an email circulating on X that talks about a “company-wide reduction in force” is real.
More than half of the people affected were contractors, a source told Reuters. The move follows pressure from investors on founder Shayne Coplan to run the company more tightly.
Kalshi Pulls Further Ahead
The timing stands out because Polymarket is now behind Kalshi in monthly trading volumes, based on DeFiLlama data. That shows how intense the competition is in a market where users buy and sell contracts on the outcome of elections, sports games, and other events.
Kalshi has also shown this year how fast the sector can grow. In February, the platform passed $1 billion (€0.9 billion) in daily volume during the Super Bowl, a sharp jump from a year earlier. For Polymarket, that mainly means the competitive pressure is not just coming from the market itself, but also from how quickly rivals can build scale.
More Pressure on the Sector
For European crypto followers, this matters because prediction markets are running into the same questions as other crypto and web3 platforms: how do you scale fast while oversight, compliance, and internal controls get stricter? Polymarket has already faced restrictions in more than 30 countries and tighter identity checks. That makes it clear that growth in this sector is not just about volume, but also about access and operational discipline.
Polymarket’s profit split has also been under scrutiny before: a Yale study on trading results showed that a small group of traders captures most of the returns.