Opinion’s geographic edge in Asia is a key strength, with about 42% of its web visits coming from the region, and the company plans to deepen its foothold in Asia-Pacific and expand globally.
A little-known prediction market platform with Asia roots burst onto the scene late last year, but already its fast start appears to be running out of steam.
Opinion Labs debuted in October and within weeks began recording notional trading volumes rivaling those of market-leaders Polymarket and Kalshi, according to user data compiled by Artemis Analytics.
To compete, Opinion uses a crypto-oriented incentive system that rewards loyal customers for their patronage. Opinion processed almost $2 billion of trades in the week ending Jan. 25, surpassing Polymarket and just shy of Kalshi’s total in the same period, the data show. But now the flywheel is faltering: Opinion’s $604 million of trades in the week ending Feb. 22 were less than half the volumes seen by Polymarket and Kalshi.
Opinion didn’t respond to questions from Bloomberg News about its trading volumes.
Prediction markets give punters a platform for betting on just about anything, from regime change to the outcome of the Super Bowl. They have grown quickly over the last year, drawing in traditional financial firms including CME Group Inc. and Intercontinental Exchange Inc., while earning Kalshi and Polymarket valuations of around $10 billion.
The platforms have faced criticism for making it possible to bet on things that used to be outside the realm of speculation, including matters of life and death, such as war.
Most of the growth has happened in the US, where regulators recently opened the door to these new financial contracts. That has led to interest in whether the same idea might take off overseas.
Opinion is an upstart backed by YZi Labs, the family office of Changpeng Zhao, co-founder and former chief executive officer of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. YZi Labs backed Opinion in August 2024 as part of an accelerator program for BNB Chain, a blockchain with close ties to Binance.
Like Binance in its early days, Opinion has gained a foothold in Asia. About 42% of its web visits came from the region in January, compared with just 19% and 7% for Polymarket and Kalshi, respectively, according to Similarweb data.
Kaviish Sethi, a data engineer at Artemis Analytics, said the Asia skew is a direct result of Opinion’s links to the Binance universe, “which puts it in an ecosystem that already has large, highly active retail communities in Asia.”
Binance didn’t respond to a request for comment. YZi Labs had no comment.
Opinion’s contracts, too, have a strong regional flavor. Users are currently wagering on the Chinese Grand Prix, when Japanese cherry blossoms will fully bloom and the outcome of Korean local elections.
Token Rewards
For early traction, Opinion deployed a points system that may translate to rewards denominated in digital tokens for its most active traders. But that same system brings with it the risk that growth could suddenly peter out.
“Points programs often drive inorganic, reward-driven volume that can drop sharply once incentives end,” Sethi said.
In the 30 days to Feb. 25, Opinion’s volumes fell about 47% to $4.14 billion, while volumes on Polymarket and Kalshi grew 15% and 16%, respectively, according to Artemis Analytics. Sethi said Opinion’s top-10 volume traders as of Jan. 19 accounted for roughly half the decline. He couldn’t pinpoint a reason for their retreat. Opinion’s website suggests the rewards program is still active.
“Opinion’s reported volume may reflect a large share of repeated trades rather than genuine net positions,” Cho Junkee, an analyst at SK Securities Co. wrote in a report published in January about the three biggest prediction markets.
The recycling of capital — repeatedly buying and selling the same contracts — to harvest points may result in artificially inflated volume that isn’t a true reflection of economic activity, he added.
A better gauge is “turnover ratio,” which weighs weekly traded volume against open interest. For Opinion, it was at 15.32 as of the week of Dec. 29, compared with 4.25 on Polymarket, according to Junkee’s report.
Similar concerns have been raised over Polymarket trading. A study by Columbia Business School posted in November found that artificial trading on the platform accounted for an average of 25% of all buying and selling over the past three years. Many active traders hoped to improve their odds of getting access to a proprietary digital token that Polymarket has said it may release, the researchers said. Polymarket didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Such tokens are typically distributed via so-called “airdrops” that serve as a reward for early adoption.
A report by blockchain security and intelligence platform Certik-Skynet in February predicted that the “triopoly” of Polymarket, Kalshi and Opinion would likely persist in 2026, but the authors wrote that Opinion’s ability to retain users after any airdrop is a key variable.
Asia Focus
Its geographic edge is, for now at least, what Opinion is focused on preserving. The company announced raising another $20 million in early February in a round featuring crypto-native investors Hack VC, Jump Crypto and Primitive Ventures. Dovey Wan, founding partner of Primitive, said Opinion’s regional focus is among its key strengths.
Opinion said it would deploy the funds to “deepen its foothold in Asia-Pacific,” where its platform “already dominates regional event liquidity.” The firm will also look to expand globally ahead of the 2026 World Cup and upcoming elections, it added.
“Opinion has very strong local cultural instinct that can keep their mid-to-long-term market really lively,” Wan said. “We want to back the underdogs.”
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