Research
Original research on markets and their participants.
Studies of crypto and prediction markets, trading activity, liquidity and data quality. Each study states its sources, observation window and limits.
Prediction markets
Polymarket and Kalshi measured: prices, liquidity, fees, settlement and the rules behind them.
Live in VultaxBrowse live odds by topicElections, the Fed, geopolitics, trade and crypto: each topic's markets priced live, with volume, liquidity and an explainer.
How Polymarket Settles: 110,576 Markets, a Median of 2.2 Hours, and 89 Disputes
Vultax measured every Polymarket market that ended between 15 August and 10 September 2026. Most settled within hours of their scheduled end, 37% closed early because the result was already known, and 89 were disputed, rare overall but most common on geopolitics and big markets.
Liquidity Rewards: Polymarket Offers $150,000 a Day; Kalshi Paid $2.95M in 30 Days
Vultax read every liquidity reward on Polymarket and Kalshi on 13 September 2026. Polymarket offered $149,859 a day across 17,866 markets, with finance and weather taking 27% of it on 6% of trading; Kalshi's programs paid out $2.95 million in 30 days, in pools with a median of $20.
Kalshi–Polymarket Arbitrage: 32,638 Price Checks, and Where a Gap Survived Fees
Vultax matched NFL, college football, Premier League, midterm and Fed contracts on Kalshi and Polymarket and walked both order books every five minutes for 28 hours. Midterm gaps cleared both venues' fees in 10% of readings and a Fed longshot in every one; pre-game sports gaps almost never did.
Polymarket vs Kalshi Midterm Odds: 65 Matched Contracts and What a $50,000 Bet Moves
Vultax matched 65 midterm contracts across Polymarket and Kalshi. The venues usually sit 1 to 3 points apart, Polymarket prices Democrats higher in 15 of the 18 most-traded outcomes, and $50,000 on a Democratic Senate cost 1.0¢ above the price on Kalshi and 2.4¢ on Polymarket.
Polymarket's Up-or-Down Crypto Markets: 60% of Its Trades, Priced About Right, 1.6% Fee
Vultax counted 15.0 million Polymarket trades over 251 hours: 59.6% were up-or-down crypto bets, 379 wallets made most of them, and takers paid about 1.6% of notional on five-minute trades. In 2,497 markets checked against outcomes, Up won 50.2% and favourites won as often as priced.
Where the Money Waits: Polymarket's Open Interest Is 55% Politics, Kalshi's 44% Sports
Vultax compared Kalshi and Polymarket on structure, fees, holdings and prices. On 13 September 2026, 55.3% of Polymarket's $341.3 million open interest sat on politics and 43.6% of Kalshi's 1.04 billion open contracts on sports; on a matched Fed pair in July, prices sat a median 5.7 cents apart.
Fed Decision Odds, Scored: Polymarket vs Kalshi at Every 2026 FOMC Meeting
How Polymarket and Kalshi priced each 2026 FOMC decision, scored against the outcome. Both venues had the 16 September hike at 87.5% an hour out; the multi-outcome Brier was 0.029 on Polymarket and 0.031 on Kalshi. Next decision 27–28 October.
Polymarket Sports and Esports: Esports Took 21.4% of the Money on the Thinnest Books
Of $727.0 million of Polymarket trading Vultax observed from 21 August to 12 September 2026, esports took 21.4%, peaking mid-morning UTC. Before start on 12–13 September, a typical League of Legends book held $413 within 2 cents; an NFL game $523,000 on Polymarket and $1.74 million on Kalshi.
Is Polymarket Legal in the US? Where Prediction Markets Stand in September 2026
Polymarket US runs on a CFTC-registered exchange; polymarket.com is still closed to Americans. The sports contracts behind 86% of Kalshi's volume have split two federal appeals courts. Court by court, as of 12 September 2026.
We Tested Polymarket Prices Against 6,776 Resolved Markets. Here's Where They Bend.
Original Vultax research: in an experimental test, a calibrated fair-value model beat raw Polymarket prices by ~9.6% on held-out Brier score. Where the favorite-longshot effect lives, what the model can honestly flag, and why it still isn't a trading edge.
Polymarket traders
Who makes money, who trades around the clock, and what following them costs.
Live in VultaxOpen Polymarket trader analyticsEvery tracked wallet with its realised P&L, activity and ranking.
Polymarket Copy Trading: Following 30 Seconds Late Cost 1.43¢ a Share, Before Fees
What copying a Polymarket trader costs, measured and worked. Behind buys by the 1,000 most profitable wallets, a follower 30 seconds late paid 1.43¢ a share more in event markets; fees and fill put a copier of a $50 crypto trade down about 6% before the market moves. Four tools compared.
Best Polymarket Traders: 36 Wallets Took 44% of Gains, and Active Winners Kept Winning
Who makes money on Polymarket, whether winners keep winning, and how five leaderboards count. The top 1% of winning wallets took 43.9% of realised gains; 124 of 137 active June winners were profitable again in July, against a 41–51% repeat rate across all wallets month to month.
Best Polymarket Tools and Whale Trackers in 2026: 22 Compared, 4 Publish Their Latency
22 Polymarket tools scored on stated latency, P&L method, history depth, liquidity context and price, with eight whale trackers compared cell by cell, from vendor pages on 5 September 2026. Four tools state how fast their alerts are, and every category has a working free tier.
1.6% of Polymarket Wallets Never Sleep. They Made 58% of All Trades.
Hourly activity for 130,346 Polymarket wallets over 12 days in August and September 2026: 2,080 wallets were active in every hour of the clock and filled 58.4% of 9.82 million trades. The ten busiest wallets alone filled one trade in five. Half of all wallets traded on a single day.
Crypto markets
Exchange prices, liquidity, feed quality and large trades across connected venues.
Live in VultaxOpen the BTC venue deskOrder books, cross-venue prices and whale trades for Bitcoin, updated live.
Why Bitcoin's Price Differs Between Exchanges: 18 Venues Checked Every Minute
Vultax read Bitcoin's order books on 18 exchanges every minute for 28 hours. Half stayed within a basis point, the highest and lowest ordinary venues sat a median 5.8 bps apart, and Upbit ran 1.31% above. In a week of readings no gap survived fees; here is what a gap has to clear.
115,006 Large-Trade Alerts: Where and When Crypto Whales Trade, by Venue and Hour
Every large-trade alert Vultax logged on six exchanges from 18 June to 3 September 2026: HTX carried 56% of large-trade notional, flow stayed close to balanced, 13:00–16:00 UTC held 23.6% of alerts, and weekends ran 23–30% quieter.
Crypto Exchange Feed Latency and Coverage: 16 Venues Measured
Order-book feed latency on 16 crypto exchanges: medians from 35.0 ms (Coinbase) to 111.5 ms (BTSE), a 95th percentile of 288–590 ms on every venue, and data in every minute of the day. Plus the coverage check that catches a feed that stays connected and stores almost nothing.
Crypto Wash Trading and Real Liquidity: Fake-Volume Estimates Run From 51% to 95%
Published estimates put fake or non-economic bitcoin volume at 51% to 95%, and above 70% on unregulated venues. Why the studies disagree, why depth and slippage judge a venue better than volume (Binance: 64.3% of volume, 30.7% of depth, per Kaiko), and what to check yourself.
Order-Book Spoofing: What It Looks Like in Live Data
Spoofing is defined by intent, which no market-data feed can observe. Here are the order-book patterns that stand in for it, and where they fail.
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