In a surprising move, Polymarket is now allowing users to gamble on whether or not Bitcoin and Ethereum will go up on an hourly basis. The community largely reacted with surprise and confusion at the news.
The platform already allowed users to make bets on these assets’ daily valuation, but the hourly option is a significant escalation. Still, these new offerings are much less popular than pre-existing ones.
Polymarket’s Hourly Bitcoin Bets
Polymarket, the largest online predictions market, already offers users a wide range of bets. It’s been kicked out of multiple countries for violating gambling laws, but it’s continued expanding.
Polymarket announced a major new partnership last week, and today, it’s upgrading user capacity to bet on Bitcoin:
Although Polymarket users already gamble on the price of Bitcoin and other assets, the community was bewildered by this announcement.
Many prominent users suggested that these bets are functionally the same as trading, and supporters struggled to describe potential benefits.
The service has only just launched, but it may be substantially less popular than the platform’s other offerings. For example, there is currently a live bet on Polymarket for whether or not Bitcoin will increase today.
It had over $735,000 in volume, but the first hourly option had only $43,000. Moving one hour forward, there’s only $12,000 in user activity. Ethereum is even less popular.
In other words, Polymarket may have launched a dud with hourly Bitcoin gambling. In some ways, this could be a good thing. Some users worried that these trades resemble risky TradFi options that are usually banned.
However, even if these trades do have dangerous potential, people need to actually use them to damage market confidence.
Still, this development is worth paying attention to. Polymarket generated a lot of hype with its X partnership, but these Bitcoin bets might be a flop. If so, it could reduce enthusiasm for the platform’s future endeavors.
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