World Cup Carnival, Forecasting the Market Table: How can Polymarket tear the public apart

Objectively, for a long time now, predicting the market position in the Crypto world has been somewhat awkward。

It is hot in the vertical circle, but not fully mainstream, and it can compress complex events into a real-time price, while it remains in the regulatory grey zone for a long time because of sensitive scenes such as politics, sports, insider information, etc。

But after the opening of the 2026 World Cup, this track suddenly reached a position that was more easily understood by the public。

The reason is simpleThe World Cup is probably the world's most natural and large forecast market scenario- Who gets the team out? Who gets the champion? Can a team get to eight? Has the probability of a focused battle been pre-prioritized by the market? These issues are inherently part of the daily discussion of fans, but in the past they have remained more in forums and sports media。

And in predictive markets like Polymarket, they can be further translated into tradable probabilities, and a price curve that evolves along the course of the competition, which is where web3 wallets begin to integrate to predict what is really interestingPredicting that the market is not just a traded product is likely to be the entry point for ordinary users to participate in real world events for the first time through a wallet。

I. Projected markets are being brought under "regulated"

If you look at the front end’s product experience, it is easy for many to interpret the forecast market simply as a “Web3 version of online guess”, but in the eyes of the regulatory community, it is a game of definitional rights。

BECAUSE MARKET TRANSACTIONS ARE PROJECTED NOT ONLY AT THE BTC, ETH PRICES, BUT ALSO MORE BROADLY AT THE RESULT OF REAL WORLD EVENTS, SUCH AS AN ECONOMIC DATA BASE, WHICH CAN BE AN ELECTION, A POLICY DECISION, OR EVEN A MORE SENSITIVE GEOLOGIC EVENT。

That is why the regulatory aspects of predicting markets are not just financial from the outset。After all, if the outcome of an event is large enough to correspond to the market, then in theory the related party, especially those with undisclosed information, may have the incentive to influence the outcome itself or to trade in advance using the advantage of information。

THIS IS ALSO THE CENTRAL CONTEXT IN WHICH THE CFTC HAS RECENTLY RELINED THE FORECAST MARKET。

As we all know, in the last two years, prognostic market platforms such as Polymucket have come out of the circle of United States general elections, macrodata and geopolitical events, leading to a massive increase in the number of people in the worldIN FACT, THE CTC HAS BEEN ACCELERATING THE INTEGRATION OF FORECASTING MARKETS AND EVENT CONTRACTS INTO PRIORITY REGULATORY ISSUES。

The United States of America CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig has just recently indicated that he is communicating with all major American professional sports federations to strengthen the regulatory framework for sports-related forecasting markets and to guard against the risks of insider trading and market manipulation, a line that is undoubtedly particularly critical for the sports market, given that sports events are natural for forecasting, but also natural sensitivities。

So almost all of the recent developments on this line have been characterized by the fact that, while recognizing the information value of predicting markets, accelerated cutting is the most problematic scenario:

For example, Kalshi has publicly stated that it will prohibit political candidates from trading in markets related to their own campaigns and will also prevent athletes, coaches, judges and others involved in professional and university sports events from participating in transactions related to their own games; and Polymarket has also updated the rules of market integrity in March, explicitly prohibiting the use of stolen information, illegally obtained information and other inappropriate sources of information for trading purposes, and strengthening controls on market manipulation and information misuse。

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INFORMATION-SHARING MECHANISM BETWEEN MLB AND CFTC IS ALSO AN INDICATION THAT BOTH SPORTS UNIONS AND REGULATORS ARE AWARE OF THE NEED TO ADDRESS THE INTEGRITY OF THE EVENT AHEAD OF SCHEDULE ONCE THE PROJECTED MARKET ENTERS THE MAINSTREAM OF SPORT。

In other wordsPredicting that markets are growing from barbarism to a phase more like financial infrastructure is both a constraint and an opportunity for Polymarket, Kalshi and more follow-up platforms。

II. Why could the World Cup become a market-predicting moment

It is not enough to predict that the market will break the circle of regulation, but it will also require a sufficiently large public event。

The World Cup just met that condition。

Crypto used to have many of the cracks in the past, often when the combination of "high-cognitive threshold technology" and "low-cognitive threshold scenario" took place。NFT, for example, once broke the circle because it tied the chain of assets to the image, the art, the community identity; Meme spreads quickly because it compresses complex financial behavior into simple emotional and cultural symbols。

It is not macroeconomic data or complex political contracts that are the best entry points for predicting markets to reach a wider range of users, but rather the scenes that the public would have been willing to discuss, such as sports, entertainment and games。

The special feature of the World Cup is that it naturally has three conditions。

• First, it has a global consensusEven if not deep fans, they understand who wins, who wins, who wins, who wins
• Second, it has a high frequency stream(a) Pre-selection, pre-situation, cut-off information, tactical changes, and the process of the competition will constantly change market expectations
• Third, it has strong social attributesLooking at the ball is not an isolated act in itself, but a process of talk, relay, discussion, controversy and emotional resonance。

There are similarities, but also clear differences, between this and traditional sports。

The traditional rate of compensation is more determined by the system of accounts and dealers, with users seeing a bid processed by the platform; the forecast market places greater emphasis on transactions between users, the formation of market prices, and transparency in the settlement of results, especially in the primary Crypto environment, where the flow of funds, transaction records and settlement processes are more easily validated, giving the forecast market greater openness and visibility。

Of course, this does not mean that the market is necessarily “higher” than the traditional sports game, and that the nature of the market is still risky, but it does provide a new mode of event participation。

Of particular note is that, according to the latest disclosures, in April 2026, the overall market turnover was projected to continue to climb, reaching approximately $29.8 billion, an increase of 12.4 per cent in the ring; however, of the cake, Polymarket's total turnover in April was 8.9 per cent lower than in March; and at the same timeKalshi, the main compliant rival who is fast-floating through the federal regulatory framework and sports contracts, has seen a reverse increase of 13 per cent to approximately $14.8 billion。

Behind this data set is a clear signal that the fundamentals of the forecast market are changing dramatically。

In the past, Polymarket had attracted a lot of in-house funding through global political games, events inside the encryption circle and macro narratives; and now, the Kalshis are raging with compliance user access and sports contracts。

It also meansAnyone who eats a cake that's common to all of humanity, can take advantage of the next phase of the flow competition。

III. From assets to events: a feelingless evolution of the wallet

This is also where the imToken World Cup's predictions are of interest。

Users are now able to access Polymarket through imTokeen and participate in the World Cup-related thematic market projections, predicting the benefits of the PolyMarket rule and the opportunity to access the imToken subsidy (the top 200 users receive a 5 U subsidy), as well as sharing prediction records and views on the World Cup through X。

On the surface, it's just a World Cup event, but..In the larger industry context, it actually points to an extension of the wallet role。

In the past, the central function of wallets was to interact with the chain of custody of assets, such as token, DApp connection, authorization, signature, Swap, DeFi or NFT transactions. After all, the wallet was the entrance to the Crypto world, but this entry was more about "assets"。

And predicting the emergence of the market gives the wallet a further opportunity to become an "incidental entry point." It is easy to understand, after all, that the user is concerned about the World Cup, not necessarily because he cares about Cripto first; the user wants to judge a race, not because he understands the trade on the chain。

But when the World Cup, Polymarket, USDC, Wallet entrances and social sharing were combined, the path to Crypto's use was rewritten --Instead of studying wallets before entering the world of a complex chain, it is to complete a light chain of engagement around a realistic event of its own。

This is critical for public users。

The threshold for many Cripto products in the past is that users must first understand the concepts of the public chain, Gas, wallet, authorization, DEX, and cross-chain to know why they use it. The forecast market, in turn, gives users a clear question: do you think this will happen? Would you like to express your judgment with a little money

When the problem is intuitive enough, the cost of product education is reduced。

This is also what the World Cup means most to predict markets, not simply a wave of transactions, but a rare public narrative for Crypto, which may be more important for Crypto than simply a volume of transactions。

The World Cup gave the reason to predict the market, and the wallet could be an entry point for the reason。

At the end

OF COURSE, THE MARKET IS NOT EXPECTED TO BE MAINSTREAMED BY A CFTC PROPOSAL OR BY A WORLD CUP EVENT。

It still faces many problems, such as regulatory boundaries that are still emerging, market manipulation and insider information that need to be managed, user privacy and chain security that need to be taken into account, and ordinary users who need to understand that predicting markets does not amount to a game that does not make money。

But the direction has become clearer。

So, during the World Cup, it was predicted that the market would be a new entry point for the Crypto Circle? The answer is not necessarily one-off "yes" or "no."。

More precisely, the World Cup is moving from a tool for predicting markets from small crowd speculators to a broader mass event engagement, and when more users are involved in real world events for the first time through their wallets, Cripto's portal may no longer be mere gestures and assets, but every public event that is taking place。

Let's see。