Polymarket：散户亏损，机器人获利

Polymarket attracts millions of crypto traders, but most are not profitable

Galaxy analyzed 2.9 million accounts on international platforms that are considered retail investors. The results show that 69.2% of users end up losing money, with a cumulative loss of US$338.9 million. In comparison, automated accounts achieved a profit of $246.8 million.

Core Points

• Of the retail accounts studied by Galaxy, 69.2% ultimately lost money.
• Its cumulative losses were approximately US$338.9 million.
• On the other hand, automated accounts made nearly $246.8 million in profits.

Most crypto traders have lost money

Galaxy leverages Polymarket's public historical data: orders, positions, entry prices and payment records are stored online, allowing research to track activity over the years. The analysis covered approximately 2.9 million accounts of users that behaved like humans.

Among this group, 69.2% of users are losing money. This result continues observations made earlier this year. Back in April, another study focusing on Polymarket and Kalshi showed that most users were losing money. However, Galaxy's new research adds an important nuance: The median loss is low, at about $3 per account. Half of traders lost between $36.64 and made only $0.40.

As a result, the loss of $338.9 million was not evenly distributed among all users. A small number of accounts concentrated major losses. At the first percentile, the loss was approximately $4,804; at the other end, the 99th percentile showed a profit of approximately $3,381. Many people lose very little, and a few lose huge.

Robots earn $246.8 million

The contrast became clearer when Galaxy isolated automated accounts. The study identified 125,429 automated accounts that together achieved a profit of approximately $246.8 million. Such accounts notably include accounts used for market making, arbitrage, or certain automated strategies.

However, not all robots are profitable. Galaxy pointed out that some accounts mainly execute a large number of transactions to profit from trading rewards. Still, the most complex profiles still have different tools than retail users, who simply choose "yes" or "no" in an event.

The market size has become huge. In the second quarter, nominal trading volume in the forecast market reached US$113.8 billion, a 48.7% increase from three months ago. Sports already accounted for 81% of Polymarket transactions in June.

Galaxy accurately found that this dominance was reflected in behavior. Traders specializing in sports trading were the least profitable among the major categories studied. Experts in science and technology and science achieved the best results. Therefore, professional knowledge seems crucial. About 44.1% of traders concentrate more than 60% of their activity in a single category. Another detail: The average position of profitable traders is slightly larger. Their median position was $13.96, while the median position on loss-making accounts was $10.

Polymarket continues to attract more new users

These numbers are particularly important as it predicts that the market is no longer a marginalized encryption product. Since its launch in 2020, Polymarket has recorded approximately 1.27 billion orders in 3.07 million wallets, with a nominal value of $82.8 billion, according to Galaxy. However, the study covers international platforms, unlike Polymarket's U.S. applications.

New users also continue to pour in through major sporting events. During the World Cup, 60% of Polymarket users surveyed had never used cryptocurrency before. For many people, predicting the market becomes the first step into the crypto ecosystem. However, Galaxy observes that rapid losses can force some users to quit. After experiencing losses, 15.2% of accounts did not make any new transactions in the next 30 days. After winning, only 6.1% of users stopped for that long.

Winning encourages continued participation, while losing does not. The final observation is simple: Polymarket can aggregate information and generate useful probabilities, but that doesn't mean its users can make money. Among the 2.9 million retail accounts studied by Galaxy, nearly 70% ended up losing money. Although they accumulated losses of $338.9 million, the automated accounts showed a profit of $246.8 million.