Kalshi Launches Prediction Market Hub with Solana and Base

The hub is designed to provide help and funding to developers as well as content creators, and users who want to build tools and content around prediction markets, covering elections, sports events, and other competitive events. According to Kalshi, the platform uses Solana’s fast and low-cost blockchain infrastructure along with Base’s Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution. With this, it’s able to process transactions efficiently.

The prediction platform experienced a surge in its monthly trading volume. This resulted in about $875 million last month. Although, this is still below rival Polymarket, which reached $1 billion in the same period. After a strong trading season ahead of the 2022 U.S. elections, Kalshi’s monthly trading dropped and has not yet crossed $1 billion in a single month since then.

Meanwhile, Polymarket has recorded multiple months exceeding $1 billion and recently received approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to relaunch in the U.S., following a 2022 settlement over unregistered binary options contracts. Polymarket also bought derivatives exchange QCEX in July to pave the way for its return to U.S. markets. Kalshi, backed by Paradigm, raised $185 million in June and is reportedly close to securing new funding at a $5 billion valuation.

Kalshi has also teamed up with Robinhood to launch college and professional football prediction markets. The new hub is attracting creators to make content for events like the FIFA World Cup, League of Legends World Championship, NBA, and NFL games.  Moreover, other companies, including Coinbase, Crypto.com, and Underdog, are exploring or launching their own prediction market platforms.