Polymarket Expands Short-Duration Trading to Metals
Polymarket has expanded its short-duration prediction markets beyond cryptocurrencies, introducing 15-minute contracts for gold and silver on both its U.S. and international platforms. According to reporting by The Defiant Team at The Defiant, the new markets, which rolled out on October 22, utilize Chainlink's XAU/USD and XAG/USD price streams to resolve whether the metals will finish a quarter-hour window at or above their starting values.
The U.S. exchange, operated by CFTC-regulated QCX LLC, settles these contracts using exact start and end spot values, rounding gold to the nearest cent and silver to three decimal places. U.S. takers trading 100 contracts at 50 cents pay approximately $1.74 before rebates, a cost structure traders can evaluate using a prediction market calculator. A Chainlink representative indicated that equities and foreign-exchange markets are slated to follow.
Context and Implications
As the Kalshi vs Polymarket rivalry intensifies, the platforms are taking divergent paths to expand beyond their core offerings. While Polymarket targets high-frequency commodity traders, Kalshi is marketing hyper-local risk management tools to small businesses. Dustin Gouker at The Event Horizon reported that Kalshi recently emailed Oregon business owners, pitching contracts on the opening dates of ski resorts like Mt. Bachelor and Big Sky as a hedge against lost early-season tourism revenue. However, Gouker noted that current liquidity and slippage make the hedging utility limited for small businesses.
This expansion into new asset classes and real-world hedging comes as both platforms face intense scrutiny over their flagship political markets. The Defiant Team at The Defiant also reported that Senators Elizabeth Warren and John Curtis have pressed Kalshi and Polymarket for answers regarding their election trading safeguards, setting a November 3 deadline for the companies to detail how many suspected violations were stopped before trades occurred.
Despite the political heat, recent academic research suggests these markets remain objective. An October 2026 working paper by Eric Zitzewitz at NBER analyzed prediction market returns from 1880 to 2025 and found no evidence of systematic overpricing for either left- or right-leaning candidates. Zitzewitz noted that while market participants may not be representative of the broader voting population, the markets still yield predictions without systematic political bias.