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The period traders once called crypto’s golden window now shows one of its weakest performances in years. The Bitcoin price drop toward $81,000 and heavy Ethereum losses have pushed sentiment to extreme pessimism, and prediction markets now reflect this shift almost in real-time.
Prediction market platform Polymarket shows traders expect more downside for Bitcoin rather than a sharp rebound. The most active market prices strong odds that BTC trades below $80,000 in November, while a deeper slide toward $75,000 ranks as the next most popular outcome.
Bullish scenarios have almost vanished from trading activity. Contracts that pay out if Bitcoin trades above $115,000 carry odds of around 2%, showing little support for a rapid recovery. Traders appear to position for continued volatility after Bitcoin fell from a peak near $126,000, triggering almost $2 billion in liquidations as ETF outflows and risk-off sentiment hit long positions.
Ethereum contracts on Polymarket point to even weaker confidence. The leading market prices a 68% chance that ETH trades below $2,600, while another popular contract assigns a 33% probability to levels under $2,400. Traders even assign a 17% chance to a move below $2,200, indicating concern that selling pressure could extend.
Expectations for a strong Ethereum rebound have faded. Only about 2% of market pricing suggests ETH can climb back above $4,000 in the near term. For many traders, the more important signal is not the latest price tick but the conviction that this downturn may continue through what used to be a seasonally strong period.
While crypto prices retreat, Polymarket’s business metrics move in the opposite direction. The platform is in talks to raise capital at a valuation between $12 billion and $15 billion, after holding a $1 billion valuation in June 2025. Management reports more than $18.1 billion in total trading volume this year and a jump in daily active users from 20,000 to nearly 58,000.
October generated over $3 billion in monthly volume, and internal projections indicate that November is expected to reach approximately $3.5 billion. Founder Shayne Coplan, who invested in Ethereum during the 2014 crowdsale and launched Polymarket in 2020, now ranks among the youngest self-made billionaires. His decision to leave New York University and focus on prediction markets led to a rapid scale-up from a small startup to a major crypto platform.
Traditional finance has also started to integrate Polymarket’s data. Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, agreed in October to invest up to $2 billion at an $8–9 billion valuation. ICE now plans to distribute Polymarket’s prediction data to institutional clients and cooperate on tokenization projects.
Also Read: How Polymarket Operates: A Complete Guide
Polymarket’s expansion paused in 2022 when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission fined the company and forced it to block US users. The platform returned to the American market after acquiring QCEX, a licensed derivatives exchange, for $112 million and receiving a CFTC no-action letter in 2025. It currently runs a closed beta for US traders ahead of a broader rollout.
The company plans to launch a POLY token and an airdrop in 2026, focusing on governance and staking features. With 1.35 million active traders, the allocation could become one of the largest token distributions in the sector.
Competition, however, continues to increase. Rival prediction platform Kalshi raised $300 million at a $5 billion valuation and now holds about 62% of total prediction market volume, compared with Polymarket’s 37%. Both firms work with major sports leagues and seek a share of the wider US sports betting and gaming market, which generated $13.7 billion in revenue in 2024.
As Bitcoin and Ethereum struggle, prediction markets such as Polymarket now serve as a key barometer of trader expectations. Their pricing suggests that, for now, the crypto market prepares for more downside rather than a swift return to the “golden window” narrative.
