Polymarket, Kalshi Enter Perps Arena, Solana Sidelined in Both Sectors

Perpetual futures trading and prediction markets have established themselves as two of crypto’s most viable use cases, attracting millions of users and generating millions in daily revenue for applications like Polymarket and Hyperliquid.

After witnessing meteoric growth separately, the two sectors are finally starting to merge. Between Polymarket and Kalshi announcing a fresh push into the perps scene, and Hyperliquid testing the prediction market waters with HIP-4, the stage is set for another fiercely competitive battle for users among crypto’s biggest apps.

Meanwhile, Solana is nowhere to be seen. Despite dominating onchain spot trading, Solana has struggled to find its feet in both prediction markets and perps trading, falling behind rivals in the leading verticals of 2026.

Polymarket, Kalshi Expand into Perps

In the last 24 hours, crypto’s leading prediction markets, Polymarket and Kalshi, have both announced their expansion into perps trading. 

With perps trading dominating headlines throughout 2026, prediction markets are evidently eager to bring crypto’s biggest markets to their user base, many of whom reportedly have limited experience or exposure to the industry.

At the same time, crypto’s leading perps venue, Hyperliquid, is branching out into prediction markets itself through HIP-4. 

The incentive for expansion is clear. Aside from stablecoin issuers, perps venues and prediction markets consistently rank as the crypto industry’s most successful business models. According to DeFiLlama data, Hyperliquid and Polymarket dominate onchain revenue generation across all chains, joined by Solana’s own memecoin launchpad, pump.fun.

While experts and industry thought-leaders debate who comes out on top in the race to house onchain finance, Solana appears to have missed the boat on crypto’s next great product.

Pump.fun remains a revenue juggernaut in its own right, but its trajectory has undeniably slowed in recent months, with monthly revenue dropping considerably since the highs of Q1 2025.

Comparatively, adoption of trading platforms like Hyperliquid and PolyMarket have improved considerably. Kalshi’s growth is even more pronounced. According to Artemis data, Kalshi now leads PolyMarket in market activity, processing around $2.7Bin weekly volume.

Solana Trails in Crypto’s Biggest Sectors

Three of crypto’s most successful applications are all converging on the same thesis, giving users all over the world leveraged access to derivatives and event contracts. Meanwhile, Solana DeFi is yet to offer a competitive alternative, allowing rival chains to establish a clear lead in emerging sectors.

While many Solana-based protocols, like Jupiter, Phantom, and DFlow, have integrated prediction markets into their applications, these are typically built on existing providers. Both Jupiter Predict and DFlow’s tokenized prediction markets are powered by Kalshi, suggesting that Solana DeFi is currently lacking a competitive prediction market of its own.

The same is true for perpetual futures. While the difficulties associated with operating a Solana-native perps DEX are well documented at this stage, the absence of a competitive option has meant that Solana is currently failing behind on crypto’s biggest stage.

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