Polymarket is making a big bet on pop culture

Polymarket, a cryptocurrency-based prediction market, has been on a winning streak after the Department of Justice and Commodity Futures Trading Commission dropped investigations into its licensing. The platform has acquired QCX, a CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange, giving it legal access to the US market. Polymarket allows users to bet on various events, including cultural and meme-level current events, and has become a shorthand fixture for the category. The platform has attracted attention as a de facto gauge of probability, applicable to any future event, and has been used to predict election results. Polymarket uses blockchain technology to enable users to buy and sell shares in possible outcomes of events, and its users have bet $6 billion on the platform so far in 2025. The platform has become synonymous with understanding the probability of current events and has attracted mainstream audiences. Polymarket's regulatory standing has been murky in the past, but the acquisition of QCX has resolved the issue. The rise of Polymarket and its rivals speaks to the growing cultural acceptance of gambling. The platform's brand stance is that prediction markets are more accurate than pundits by gathering collective knowledge and perspectives into a single value. Despite the potential for errors, Polymarket is betting that its appeal will bring prediction markets into the mainstream and into the cultural conversation on various topics.