Bernstein 10x's Prediction Market Forecast to $10 Trillion
Wall Street research firm Bernstein has radically revised its outlook for the prediction market sector, now projecting the industry will handle $10 trillion a year by 2035. This represents a staggering tenfold increase from the firm's previous $1 trillion by 2030 estimate, which was issued just five months ago.
This bullish institutional outlook aligns closely with shifting retail trends. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev noted today that crypto event contracts are already outpacing sports bets on their platform. Tenev expects event-based crypto markets to become the dominant category for the brokerage within a few years, as returning attention to the crypto sector begins to show up in retail trading data.
Kalshi Details Defense Against Wash-Trading Claims
Meanwhile, regulated exchange Kalshi is pushing back against recent wash-trading allegations surrounding its crypto derivatives. Following weekend reports of inflated volume, Kalshi denied faking its volume, explaining that the highly repetitive trade sizes originated from a single paid market maker striving to maintain order book depth. According to the exchange, this market maker was actually losing money to faster traders.
The specific data behind the controversy, analyzed by CoinDesk, revealed that a single $5,499 trade size accounted for 57% of sampled ether-perpetual volume. Similarly, recurring $2,500 and $5,000 blocks made up 54% of sampled bitcoin-perpetual volume on the platform.
Macro Odds Shift as Crypto Sells Off
In broader macroeconomic prediction markets, interest rate hike odds have reached 64% as Brent crude oil topped $106 per barrel. The shifting macro environment, spurred by an August producer price print of 0.4% and the 30-year Treasury yield passing a five-year high, triggered a broad crypto sell-off. Bitcoin dropped to $77,120, and 103 of the top 125 non-stablecoin tokens traded lower on the day.
Traders tracking these volatile macro contracts can utilize predictionmarketstools.com to monitor shifting odds and volume metrics across major platforms in real time.