American-linked activity led all countries despite the platform’s U.S. block, with trading skewed toward foreign-conflict markets and drawing fresh attention as regulators scrutinize prediction markets.
U.S.-linked wallets accounted for about $571 million in political-contract trading on Polymarket over the past year, the largest national total in Allium’s data and ahead of Hong Kong at $422 million, despite restrictions barring U.S. users from the offshore platform. Allium said American-linked demand was concentrated in foreign-conflict markets that are largely unavailable on regulated U.S. venues, while election contracts made up a smaller share of U.S. volume than for the platform overall. The research firm said it could assign country tags to only about 6% of political-market wallets, making the figures directional rather than exact. Within the identified U.S.-linked flow, geopolitics accounted for 46% of notional volume versus 36% across Polymarket, while election markets represented 16% of U.S. volume compared with 32% platform-wide. The largest U.S.-linked market was a novelty contract on whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would wear a suit, and five of the 12 largest U.S.-linked markets were tied to the Iran war. The findings add to pressure on Polymarket as the CFTC investigates the platform and broader attention intensifies in the United States and Europe. The report also suggests that access restrictions have not eliminated U.S. demand, but instead pushed part of it into offshore, crypto-based markets that remain visible on-chain while sitting outside direct domestic oversight.