In summary
- The growing interest in cryptocurrencies on Blockchain-based prediction platforms intensified on Monday with the launch of BET by decentralized exchange Drift Protocol, which operates on the Solana network.
- Drift has launched its product in alpha phase, with users already ready to participate in two political bets, achieving over $3.5 million in total liquidity in the order book in the first 24 hours.
- Through Drift, users bet $124,000 on former President Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election, with an assigned probability of 48%, and $186,000 on Vice President Kamala Harris.
The growing interest in cryptocurrencies on blockchain-based prediction platforms intensified on Monday with the launch of BET by decentralized exchange Drift Protocol, which operates on the Solana network.
Drift is set to take on Polymarket as a divisive US election season drives massive amounts of betting on the leading platform. Against this backdrop, Drift has launched its product in alpha phase, with users already ready to participate in two political bets. This start has been promising, with the new player showing strong results on its first day of operations.
“In the first 24 hours after Drift launched BET prediction markets, we have seen over $3.5M in total liquidity on the order book,” tweeted Cindy Leow, co-founder of Drift.
One key difference is that Polymarket exists on Ethereum’s scaling solution Polygon, while BET and Drift operate on Solana. According to Drift, BET benefits from Solana’s high speed compared to other blockchain networks and low fees.
Through Drift, users have bet $124,000 on the possibility of former President Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election, with a 48% probability assigned at the time of writing. On the other hand, they have bet $186,000 on the probability of Vice President Kamala Harris winning the popular vote, currently giving the Democratic candidate a 71% probability.
While Drift has reached $310,000 in open interest across two contests in just over a day, the figure is a far cry from that of Polymarket’s contests, which have been running for several months. So far, $74 million and $82 million have been wagered on Harris and Trump, respectively, to pick the winner of the 2024 presidential race on Polymarket. At the time of writing, Trump was slightly ahead of Harris, with a 50% chance of winning the White House compared to her 49% odds.
As for who will win the popular vote, both Drift and Polymarket assign identical odds to Kamala Harris. Like Polymarket, Drift is banned for those in the US and other restricted territories. Across all bets, Polymarket’s open interest is $80 million, meaning the value of outstanding bets on Polymarket is more than 250 times that of both of Drift’s current markets.
Another major difference between the platforms is that Polymarket accepts bets using USDC, the second-largest stablecoin, while Drift accepts bets in 30 different cryptocurrencies, according to a blog post. Additionally, Drift claims that users can “earn yield” through lending, with the opportunity to hedge positions using so-called structured bets.
Following Drift’s foray into the world of predictions, the value of the DRIFT platform’s governance token increased by 24% in the last day, to $0.42.
While politics is Polymarket’s bread and butter, the platform supports user-generated markets in categories like pop culture, cryptocurrencies, and sports. According to Drift’s website, users will soon have similar betting pools, on Formula 1 and other sports markets.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
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