From trading assets to trading events: The integration logic behind Gate's connection to Polymarket

In the crypto world of 2026, the narrative is quietly shifting. As traditional spot and derivatives trading enter an era of “positioned” competition, prediction markets—driven by their unique event-based logic—are becoming a new engine for capturing both traffic and capital.

In March 2026, Gate, a leading global cryptocurrency exchange, officially integrated with Polymarket, the world’s largest decentralized prediction market platform, becoming the first centralized exchange (CEX) globally to integrate it. This move is not only an expansion of Gate’s own business boundaries; it also marks a strategic leap for CEXs—from an “asset trading platform” to an “information trading platform.” The fusion of event trading and token trading has taken a substantive step forward.

A trillion-dollar track explodes: Why prediction markets are becoming crypto’s new home

Before discussing the meaning of the fusion, it’s necessary to first clarify the size and momentum of the prediction market track.

According to a report by TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence company, global prediction markets’ monthly trading volume has surpassed $200 billion, surging from roughly $12 billion at the start of 2025 to more than $200 billion in January 2026. The number of independent wallets participating in trades each month reached 840k. Dune Analytics data shows that in March 2026, the year-over-year growth of prediction market monthly users reached 118% to 865,411 people. Nominal trading volume was close to $23.89 billion, up about 1,107% versus the same period last year.

Looking at global cumulative data, as of the end of February 2026, global prediction markets’ cumulative nominal trading volume had already reached $127.5 billion, with Polymarket leading at $56.07 billion.

Even more notable is the strong entry by legacy financial giants. On March 27, 2026, ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, completed a $600 million investment in Polymarket. Combined with the $1.0 billion investment made earlier in October 2025, ICE’s total investment commitment in Polymarket is now about $2.0 billion. The consecutive re-entries by traditional financial giants signal that institutions increasingly view crypto-native prediction platforms as an “instant macroeconomic radar” and are integrating them into investment decision processes.

At the same time, there were also breakthroughs on the compliance front. At the beginning of 2026, the CFTC issued a “no-action letter” to Polymarket, eliminating legal uncertainty around its return to the U.S. market. On March 17, the CFTC and the SEC also jointly released a 68-page regulatory framework document, marking a new phase of U.S. crypto regulation characterized by clarity and coordination.

Gate breaks through: Connecting the “last mile” between CEX and DeFi

Although Polymarket is growing rapidly, its native user-entry barrier has long limited the explosive growth of its user base. Users need to register separately, set up Web3 wallets, transfer USDC across chains (Polygon network), and complete a series of operations. For CEX users—which make up the majority of the market—this step often means significant user drop-off.

With this integration, Gate precisely addresses this pain point, bringing three core changes to more than 51 million users:

Seamless access of funds. Users no longer need to manage complex seed phrases or perform cross-chain bridging. They can directly use USDT from their Gate exchange account to participate in prediction trading, without additional Gas fees. This experience lowers the participation threshold for prediction markets to the same level as spot trading, greatly unlocking the purchasing power of existing users.

A fusion of dual trading modes. While keeping Polymarket’s core “Yes/No” prediction mechanism, Gate introduces a novel dual-architecture design: “Prediction Mode + Trading Mode.” Prediction Mode offers a user-friendly interface that intuitively displays “Yes/No” probabilities and odds, making it easy for newcomers to get started quickly. Trading Mode provides an order book, candlestick charts, market depth, and limit/market orders—meeting the needs of professional traders’ strategy execution. This design keeps the essence of prediction markets while giving event trading the professional operational experience of traditional token trading—this fusion at the product level is made possible by the architecture itself.

Simplified settlement mechanics. After the event is settled, the winning payout is automatically exchanged 1:1 for a stablecoin and transferred to the spot account. This design removes both the waiting period of on-chain settlement and the risk of slippage, delivering “what you see is what you get.”

In terms of participation pathways, Gate adopts a parallel, two-track structure: general users can trade directly via the account system using USDT, resulting in an experience close to traditional spot markets. Users familiar with blockchain can enter the on-chain environment through a Web3 wallet and trade and settle on the Polygon network. This design balances convenience with decentralization, enabling users from different backgrounds to participate.

The deeper meaning of merging event trading and token trading

Gate’s integration with Polymarket is not just an update to product functionality; it is a redefinition of the exchange’s ecosystem boundaries. The fusion of event trading and token trading has at least three deep implications:

First, capturing pricing power for “event trading.” Traditional CEX competition centers on listing rights and contract depth. But the core of prediction markets is “pricing power over events.” By integrating Polymarket, Gate effectively brings “probability pricing” from macroeconomics, sports events, political elections, and even technological progress into its own ecosystem. Users are no longer just BTC buyers—they can be the bettors on “a May Fed rate hike,” or the predictors of “the 2026 World Cup champion.”

Second, building a puzzle piece for the “super financial app” ecosystem. As of March 30, 2026, Gate’s registered users have surpassed 51 million. With traffic tailwinds peaking, deep operation of existing users is more valuable than blindly acquiring new ones. Polymarket’s integration gives these users a low-barrier, high-frequency “event trading” entry point, greatly enriching the platform’s user lifecycle value.

Third, a paradigm shift from “trading assets” to “trading information.” In its 2026 trend report, Wintermute Ventures points out that prediction markets are expanding as both a mass product and an innovative financial tool. They not only support hedging trades and result-linked trading, but also allow pricing trades on a wide range of niche events—and may even be beginning to replace parts of traditional financial infrastructure. When everything becomes tradable, the events themselves become the tradable objects, and the market gains a higher level of expressive capability. The fusion of event trading and token trading is the product of this paradigm shift.

From user behavior data, this trend has already been validated. According to BeInCrypto’s exclusive data dashboard, the median bet size on the Polymarket platform is $10. More than 57% of users’ single trades are under $100, and over 80% have trade amounts below $500. This market is not dominated by whales; instead, it is driven by many smaller users participating with relatively modest capital—its structure is highly similar to what emerged when retail stock trading took off. The average number of daily trades per active user is about 25, and user behavior is closer to trading than to gambling.

Real-world heat: Prediction markets are becoming “market barometers”

Prediction market data is becoming an important reference for mainstream media and institutional investors. In February 2026, the single contract “Will the U.S. attack Iran by February 28, 2026?” attracted $73 million in funding, becoming the largest geopolitical contract in Polymarket’s history. As of April 6, the contract “U.S. forces will enter Iran by April 30” had accumulated trading volume of $193 million. As of March 31, Polymarket already had 246 active markets related to Iran, with cumulative trading volume exceeding $1 billion.

Even more worth noting is that on March 30, 2026, Polymarket ended its zero-fee model, charging taker fees for core categories. Two days after the change, the platform’s daily revenue broke $1 million—meaning prediction markets completed a business closed loop from “burning money to expand” to “self-sustaining growth.” In his latest research report, Messari senior analyst Austin Weiler conducted a valuation assessment of Polymarket, projecting that by 2028 its fully diluted valuation (FDV) could reach $111.2 billion under an optimistic scenario—a trillion-dollar-level market is quietly emerging.

Summary

Gate’s integration with Polymarket is a key milestone for the crypto industry moving from “trading assets” to “trading events.” The fusion of event trading and token trading not only lowers the participation barrier for prediction markets and opens entirely new tracks for billions-level existing crypto users, but also redefines an exchange’s ecosystem boundaries—evolving from a pure asset trading platform into infrastructure that connects information, cognition, and market value.

As prediction market scale grows and more participants join, the essence of its pricing mechanism is to aggregate the judgments of large numbers of users, forming a decentralized expectation-based price. When this mechanism continues to mature, there is a chance it could become one of the important ways to measure information value. Prediction markets are not just financial products; they are more likely to become critical infrastructure connecting data, cognition, and market value.

For Gate users, this is a brand-new window of opportunity. On the same platform, you can trade both BTC and ETH price volatility, as well as trade on Fed decisions, World Cup outcomes, and geopolitical trajectories. The fusion of event trading and token trading makes “information” itself a financial asset that can be priced and traded. This is not only an expansion of the range of trading targets, but also a paradigm revolution about the very nature of the market.