For a long period, prediction markets occupied an awkward position inside the crypto world. They were active within vertical crypto communities and capable of compressing complex real-world events into live prices, but they also remained exposed to regulatory uncertainty because many of their most active categories involved politics, sports, inside information and other sensitive areas. After the start of the 2026 World Cup, that position changed in an important way: prediction markets suddenly moved into a setting that ordinary users can understand immediately.
The reason is straightforward. The World Cup is one of the most natural and largest prediction-market scenarios in the world. Questions such as which team will advance from the group stage, who will win the championship, whether a specific team can reach the quarterfinals, and whether the win probability of a major match has already been priced by the market are already part of everyday football discussion. In the past, those conversations mostly stayed on forums, in group chats and across sports media. On Polymarket and similar platforms, they become tradable probabilities and price curves that move as the tournament develops.
This is why the integration of prediction markets by Web3 wallets such as imToken is significant. The product is not simply another trading interface. It can also become a way for ordinary users to participate in real-world events through a wallet. Instead of first learning about public chains, gas fees, permissions, DEXs or bridges, a user can begin with a familiar question: do they believe a certain match outcome will happen, and are they willing to express that view with a small amount of capital?
From Sports Conversation to Tradable Probability
If viewed only from the front-end experience, prediction markets can look like a Web3 version of online sports guessing. Regulators see a more complex issue. The market is not only about the prices of BTC and ETH. It also covers the outcomes of real-world events, including economic data, elections, policy decisions and more sensitive geopolitical events. That is why the regulatory debate around prediction markets has never been purely financial.
When a market tied to an event becomes large enough, related parties, especially those with non-public information, can have an incentive to influence the result or trade ahead of the public using an information advantage. This is the central background behind the CFTC’s recent effort to redraw lines around prediction markets. Over the past two years, platforms such as Polymarket repeatedly reached wider attention through the U.S. election, macroeconomic data and geopolitical events, pushing the CFTC to accelerate its focus on prediction markets and event contracts as a key regulatory topic.
CFTC Oversight Meets Sports Integrity
Michael S. Selig, chair of the U.S. CFTC, recently said the agency is communicating with all major U.S. professional sports leagues in an effort to strengthen the regulatory framework for sports-related prediction markets and guard against insider trading and market manipulation. This is especially important for sports markets because sports events are naturally suited to prediction, while also being naturally sensitive. The recent actions in this area share a common feature: they recognize the informational value of prediction markets while moving faster to separate out the scenarios most likely to create problems.
Kalshi has publicly said it will prohibit political candidates from trading in markets related to their own campaigns. It will also prevent athletes, coaches, referees and other related personnel in professional and college sports from participating in trades tied to their own events. Polymarket updated its market integrity rules in March, explicitly banning trading based on stolen information, illegally obtained information and other improper information sources, while strengthening restrictions around market manipulation and information misuse.
The information-sharing mechanism established by MLB and the CFTC also shows that sports leagues and regulators both recognize the same issue: once prediction markets enter mainstream sports settings, the integrity of the competition must be addressed in advance. In other words, prediction markets are moving away from a phase of uncontrolled growth and toward a stage that looks more like financial infrastructure. For Polymarket, Kalshi and later platforms, this creates constraints, but it also creates a clearer path to larger adoption.
The World Cup as a Low-Friction Public Event
Regulatory transition alone is not enough for prediction markets to reach a broader audience. They also need a sufficiently large public event, and the World Cup fits that requirement. Many of crypto’s previous mainstream moments came when high-threshold technologies were attached to low-threshold cultural or social settings. NFTs reached wider users by connecting on-chain assets with avatars, art and community identity. Meme assets spread quickly by compressing complex financial behavior into simple emotion and cultural symbols.
For prediction markets, the strongest entry point is not macroeconomic data or complicated political contracts, but sports, entertainment and competitions that people already want to discuss. The World Cup has three important characteristics. First, it carries global consensus: even people who are not deep football fans can understand who wins, who loses, who qualifies and who becomes champion. Second, it has a constant information flow, with pre-match lineups, player condition, injuries, tactical changes and match progress all reshaping expectations. Third, it has a strong social layer because watching football is rarely an isolated activity; it involves group chats, reposts, arguments, discussion and shared emotion.
This overlaps with traditional sports betting, but it is not identical. Traditional odds are more often determined by handicaps and bookmaker systems, and users see a quote processed by the platform. Prediction markets emphasize trading among users, the formation of market prices and transparent settlement. In a crypto-native environment, capital flows, trade records and settlement processes are easier to verify, giving prediction markets stronger openness and observability. This does not mean prediction markets are inherently superior to traditional sports betting. Their essence remains risk trading. What they offer is a different way to participate in events.
Volume Shifts and the Wallet as an Event Gateway
According to the latest disclosed data, total prediction-market trading volume continued rising in April 2026, reaching about 29.8 billion U.S. dollars, up 12.4% month-on-month. Within that growing market, however, Polymarket’s total trading volume in April fell 8.9% from March. At the same time, Kalshi, which is focused on a compliance path and is expanding through a federal regulatory framework and sports contracts, grew against the trend by 13% to about 14.8 billion U.S. dollars. These numbers send a clear signal that the base of the prediction-market business is changing.
In the past, Polymarket attracted significant crypto-native capital through global political contests, crypto-sector events and macro narratives. Now, Kalshi and similar platforms are expanding quickly through compliant user channels and sports contracts. This means that the platform capable of capturing the global sports opportunity can gain an advantage in the next phase of traffic competition. On the surface, the current discussion looks like a World Cup-related activity, but in the larger industry context it points to an extension of the wallet’s role.
Previously, the core functions of a wallet were asset custody and on-chain interaction. Users used wallets to send and receive tokens, connect to DApps, authorize transactions, sign messages, swap assets and participate in DeFi or NFT trading. In that structure, the wallet was an entry point into the crypto world, but the entry point was centered on assets. Prediction markets give wallets a chance to become an entry point for event participation. Users may care about the World Cup before they care about crypto. They may want to judge a match before they understand on-chain trading.
When the World Cup, Polymarket, USDC, a wallet entry point and social sharing are combined, the crypto user journey is rewritten. The user does not first study wallets and then move into a complex on-chain world. Instead, the user begins with a real-world event they already care about and completes a lightweight on-chain action around that event. This is important for mainstream users because many crypto products require them to understand the tool before understanding the reason to use it. Prediction markets reverse that order by giving users a clear event-based question first.
The World Cup will not make prediction markets mainstream immediately, and neither will a single CFTC proposal. The sector still faces unresolved issues, including the formation of regulatory boundaries, governance around market manipulation and insider information, user privacy, on-chain security and the need for ordinary users to understand that prediction markets are not risk-free games. A clearer description is that the World Cup is moving prediction markets from a tool for niche speculators into a wider public-event participation setting. As more users first participate in real-world events through wallets, crypto’s entry point may no longer be limited to prices and assets, but may extend to public events as they happen.