Attracting new users is rarely the main challenge in crypto — keeping them engaged beyond the first month is. New data from prediction markets highlights just how difficult sustained user activity remains across the sector.
Retention figures for Polymarket, compiled by analytics firm Dune in collaboration with market maker Keyrock, tracked monthly cohorts of newly active users and measured how many returned to trade in the months that followed.
The report analyzed 275 crypto projects across networks, decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, wallets, and trading applications. It found that Polymarket’s average retention rate exceeded that of more than 85% of the protocols studied.
The findings underscore how uncommon long-term user engagement is in crypto. In markets where liquidity relies on frequent participation, weak retention often points to growth that is broad but shallow.
Why crypto platforms are turning to prediction markets
Prediction markets offer a different engagement model than most crypto applications. User activity is tied to real-world events such as elections, sporting events, and macroeconomic data releases, giving participants recurring reasons to return and trade.
This event-driven structure encourages more frequent participation than short-term price speculation alone and reduces the need for aggressive incentives to sustain activity.
These dynamics help explain why many major crypto platforms are increasingly exploring prediction market integrations. For platforms that struggle to maintain consistent engagement outside periods of high market volatility, prediction markets provide features that promote habitual use rather than one-off transactions.
Crypto firms expand into prediction markets
Several prominent crypto companies signaled moves into the prediction markets space in December, including exchanges Coinbase and Gemini, wallet provider Phantom, and clearing firm Bitnomial Clearinghouse.
Bloomberg reported on Friday that Coinbase plans to roll out tokenized equities alongside prediction markets, following alleged leaks of a prediction markets website shared by tech researcher Jane Manchun Wong.
That same day, Phantom announced a partnership with prediction market platform Kalshi, bringing event-based trading directly into its wallet. The integration allows users to trade tokenized Kalshi positions within the Phantom app.
On Saturday, Bitnomial received approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), clearing the way to launch prediction markets and offer clearing services to other platforms.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, crypto exchange Gemini launched its own in-house prediction market across all 50 U.S. states, saying it aims to create a unified app where users can access both crypto trading and prediction markets.
