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arXiv · 2603.03136

The Anatomy of a Blockchain Prediction Market: Polymarket in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

Kwok Ping Tsang·Zichao Yang
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Abstract

Using the complete on-chain settlement ledger, we study Polymarket's 2024 U.S. presidential election markets, focusing on the Trump YES price widely quoted as a forecast of the race. Because the platform mints and burns outcome shares inside ordinary trades, naive aggregation overstates turnover. We develop a transaction-level decomposition that separates turnover from net inflow and market activity: in October it reports \$391 million of Trump-market turnover against \$958 million of naive volume. Corrected price impact reveals a shallower market: moving the October forecast by five percentage points cost \$9.1 million rather than \$15.6 million. Capital entered on both sides of the race throughout the month, consistent with heterogeneous beliefs rather than one-sided manipulation. The overstatement holds across 249 markets and is largest in thin, young ones.

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Kwok Ping Tsang, Zichao Yang. 2026-09-14. The Anatomy of a Blockchain Prediction Market: Polymarket in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.03136

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