Is Polymarket rushing to issue cryptocurrency to boost revenue figures? The sports market is opening up to fees, aiming to become the new "money-printing machine" of Web3.

Author: Frank, PANews

On February 18, 2026, Polymarket announced that starting that day, the platform would pilot a market order fee in the sports market. The first wave of events covered were NCAA basketball and Italian Serie A leagues, with plans to gradually expand to all sports events in the future.

Previously, Polymarket's weekly revenue had already exceeded $1.08 million solely from transaction fees in the cryptocurrency 15-minute price fluctuation market. According to on-chain data, the sports market accounts for nearly 40% of the platform's total transaction activity; translating this to annual revenue, cryptocurrency market fees alone could contribute approximately $56 million. Therefore, when the sports market, which accounts for an even larger share, also begins charging fees, Polymarket may become the biggest money-printing machine in the crypto space.

PANews conducted an in-depth analysis of Polymarket's fee structure, revenue model, competitor benchmarks, and expected token airdrops.

From "zero income" to earning millions a week, the $9 billion behemoth is getting eager to make money.

For a long time, Polymarket operated with almost "zero revenue," with the vast majority of its markets not charging any transaction fees. This free strategy brought it astonishing growth: its total trading volume in 2025 reached $21.5 billion, accounting for nearly half of the total global prediction market trading volume ($44 billion); and its trading volume in January 2026 alone broke through $12 billion, a record high.

However, with its listing on a cryptocurrency exchange approaching this year, a zero-revenue model clearly cannot justify its valuation. In its most recent funding round, its valuation reached $9 billion, and in October 2025, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, invested a staggering $2 billion in Polymarket. According to PM Insights, as of January 19, 2026, Polymarket's implied valuation in the secondary market had climbed to $11.6 billion, an increase of nearly 29% from its previous funding round. Reports suggest that subsequent funding rounds could value the company at $12 billion to $15 billion. Such a high valuation requires commensurate revenue to support it.

The turning point came in January 2026, when Polymarket clearly started to panic this year.

In January, Polymarket officially introduced the "Taker Fee" to its 15-minute cryptocurrency price change market, a high-frequency trading product, with rates reaching up to 3%. The impact was immediate: by early February 2026, weekly fee revenue exceeded $1.08 million, with the 15-minute price change market alone contributing $787,000 in one week in January, accounting for 28.4% of the platform's total prediction market fee revenue ($2.7 million) during the same period. To date, Polymarket has generated over $4.7 million in fees, ranking among the top earners.

The ingenious design behind 0.45% is a fee model that's not just about making money.

Polymarket's new fees for the sports market are based on a carefully designed dynamic rate model.

According to Polymarket's official documentation and community analysis, the sports market only charges fees for market orders (Takers). Limit orders (Makers) are not only free, but also earn a 25% rebate on Taker fees. Similar to the cryptocurrency market's fee structure, the fee rate is not fixed but fluctuates with changes in event probability.

Simply put, the more uncertain the market, the higher the fee. The fee peaks at 0.44% when the probability is 50%, while it drops to only 0.13%-0.16% when the probability is 10% or 90%.

However, in terms of standards, the fees in the sports market are far lower than those in the cryptocurrency market. Nevertheless, this does not diminish the revenue potential of the sports market.

Data shows that the sports market currently accounts for 39% of Polymarket's total trading activity, surpassing politics (20%) and crypto (28%). More importantly, according to previous analysis by PANews, the average trading volume in the short-term sports market on Polymarket ($1.32 million) is 30 times that of the average trading volume in the short-term crypto market ($44,000). This means that if the sports market were fully opened to fees, revenue would see a significant increase.

Taking the 2026 Super Bowl as an example, Polymarket's total trading volume in Super Bowl-related markets reached approximately $795 million, covering multiple sub-markets such as game results, player performance, and halftime show predictions. The total weekly trading volume in the prediction market has previously exceeded $6.3 billion, driven by sporting events.

Based on existing data, PANews has constructed three profit forecast scenarios (assuming an average effective fee rate of 0.25% in the sports market, considering probability distribution and free limited-price tickets):

Even by the most conservative estimate, Polymarket's annualized revenue after fully charging fees will exceed $200 million, enough to place it among the highest-grossing protocols in the Web3 space.

While surpassing Tether's government bond interest income or Ethereum's mainnet gas fees is unrealistic, Polymarket has the potential to contend for the title of "most profitable dApp" at the application layer. This is especially true considering its 85% user retention rate, far exceeding that of typical DeFi protocols; this high stickiness translates to higher-quality revenue.

POLY tokens and airdrops: a "wealth feast" worth hundreds of millions of dollars?

Polymarket's high valuation and large user base make its token airdrop one of the most anticipated events of 2026.

Polymarket's Chief Marketing Officer, Matthew Modabber, has stated explicitly: "There will be tokens, there will be airdrops." Market predictions indicate a 62%-70% probability that Polymarket will issue its token before December 31, 2026, and considering the pace of the restart of its US operations, TGE is likely to be completed by mid-2026.

On February 4, 2026, its parent company, Blockratize Inc., applied for the trademarks "POLY" and "$POLY," which is considered by the industry to be a significant milestone for TGE. According to the general practice in the crypto industry, it usually takes 3-6 months from trademark registration to TGE.

The scale of the airdrop may surpass Hyperliquid, marking the end of the era of inflated metrics.

Referring to the airdrop ratios of recent top projects (Arbitrum, Jupiter, Hyperliquid), the community share is typically between 5% and 15% of the total supply. PANews has made calculations based on different valuation assumptions:

If the total airdrop amount is $1.4 billion, and assuming there are 500,000 eligible active addresses, the average airdrop value per account could reach approximately $2,800. However, according to the Pareto principle (Pareto Principle), the top users could earn hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, and ordinary retail investors need to manage their expectations reasonably.

Of particular note is that Polymarket launched a 4% annualized holding rewards program alongside its fee-based system, distributed daily based on hourly snapshots. This mechanism reveals the project team's clear preference: the duration of fund retention is far more important than trading frequency.

Moat and Hidden Worries: What are the risks of this "money printing machine"?

Charging fees means users have to pay extra costs, so how can Polymarket keep up with the costs?

The platform boasts a clear triple moat: First, it possesses unparalleled liquidity depth in the prediction market sector, which is crucial for high-volume traders; second, compared to the 5%-10% commission of traditional gambling and Kalshi's 1%-3.5%, its peak fee rate of 0.45% still offers an overwhelming cost advantage; third, ICE's entry not only brings capital but also data distribution capabilities. ICE plans to integrate Polymarket's real-time prediction data with global institutional clients, creating a "second growth curve" beyond transaction fees.

However, the risks should not be ignored:

Short-term fluctuations in trading volume: Polymarket's monthly trading volume fell from a peak of $1.026 billion in November 2025 to $543 million in December. Will fees exacerbate this trend? However, considering the positive effects of increased market depth and narrower spreads after the introduction of Maker Rebate, long-term trading volume is actually expected to rise.

Competitive landscape: Kalshi has a first-mover advantage in the US compliant market (with revenue of approximately $260 million in 2025), Hyperliquid is attempting to enter the prediction market sector through "Outcome Trading" (FDV of approximately $16 billion), and Predict.fun attracts users with DeFi yields.

Regulatory uncertainty: Despite obtaining a No-Action Letter from the CFTC and acquiring the compliant exchange QCX, the ever-changing US regulatory environment remains a Damocles' sword hanging over the prediction market.

postscript

From free to paid, from the crypto market to global sporting events, Polymarket is undergoing a meticulously planned business model upgrade. While it can generate millions weekly from the crypto market alone, the sports market—a behemoth accounting for nearly 40% of the platform's trading volume and boasting 30 times the liquidity of the crypto market—is only just beginning to charge fees. Polymarket's story offers a thought-provoking model: the true value of a platform may not lie in how much money it makes at any given moment, but in proving its ability to charge fees when it wants. When the pie is big enough and the moat is deep enough, opening the floodgates to fees is only a matter of time.

This "money printing machine," which was already in the preheating stage, was only started on February 18th.