3 Crypto Prediction Markets Better Than Kalshi

2024 saw the latest US Presidential election. 2025 saw the advent of a friendly regulatory environment (and White House) for crypto. These two years have propelled prediction markets into the now-mainstream intersection of crypto, traditional finance, and economic analysis.

It isn’t “glorified gambling”, predicting is to draw upon historical context and precedents to accurately assess the likelihood of future possible outcomes.

What that really means, is whether something will happen or not.

Getting the answer right, can, will, and does mint new millionaires. One particular prediction market, Kalshi, had an early mover advantage and positioning that presented it as a serious, regulated option.

What is Kalshi?

Helping to kick off a new “truth layer” narrative for information on the internet, Kalshi is a centralized and regulated prediction market where users can bet on the price of Bitcoin, Federal Reserve interest rate decisions and other markets that, crucially, they create and earn from.

Kalshi users must verify their identity, and make predictions – essentially trades – in USD. As a result, professionals, hedge funds, and institutional traders like Kalshi for compliance and safety purposes. 

That doesn’t mean it is the right prediction market for us crypto folk, who can and should be adding prediction markets (and prediction skills) to our repertoires. 

Why use prediction markets?

You’ve likely heard of prediction markets, but do you know why you should be using them? There are some obvious reasons, and other more subtle reasons that are just as important. In no particular order, here they are:

• You can make money – naturally, this is why most people are predicting. Entering with only this goal in mind is a surefire way to get rekt. 
• You can earn airdrop points – not talked about anywhere near enough, new prediction markets must heavily incentivize you to engage with them instead of the incumbent duopoly, so most of them are running points programs. Go get those airdrops!
• You can have fun competing – also never mentioned is the fact that making predictions is a fun, engaging and enriching experience because you learn more about the world (as you earn). 
• You can learn and improve – once you’ve been predicting for some time, you should naturally see your skills as a predictor improve, and this could be a very valuable skill in future!

Ultimately, with prediction markets this is your opportunity to be part of a new category and narrative driving crypto forward and that is worth doing even without the possibility of rewards.

So, you may be tempted to sign up for Kalshi simply because you want to predict and you’ve heard it is the biggest and best prediction market. It’s good, sure, but it does have some cons you need to be aware of. 

Cons of Kalshi

Just because it’s worth 10+ billion dollars, doesn’t mean Kalshi is perfect. It has numerous drawbacks for the average retail crypto user:

• Access – you’ll need to hand over a lot of personal information to access Kalshi, not to mention use fiat dollars. This is enough to put off a lot of people. 
• Regulatory hurdles to overcome – any business this big is going to be scrutinized heavily, and will likely result in geofencing. This could see your funds frozen and that is bad, obviously. 
• Limited markets and assets – though Kalshi is growing and expanding the assets you can use into web3 as well as the markets on offer, only they can create markets, heavily limiting your options.
• Fees – as a centralized platform and a for profit business, Kalshi has high fees that will eat into your profit margins. 

3 superior alternatives to Kalshi

Polymarket is an obvious choice here, as a crypto native and massively expanding prediction market platform, especially post-relaunching in the US. It uses USDC on Polygon (hence the name) and allows anyone to suggest markets, as well as offering rewards and a huge breadth of markets available. It also has the deepest liquidity of any prediction market. Polymarket has low fees and should be available to most retail crypto users. 

Myriad Markets is running an airdrop program that we’ve written about before, but aside from that, this is a great platform for predictions. Myriad is multi-chain with current support for BNB, Abstract and Linea. Importantly, it empowers any user to create their own market (and thus earn from it). That’s not bad at all, combine it with a points program, and you’ve got a great new project to farm predictions on.  

Limitless is enjoying fantastic growth as part of the popular Base and Coinbase ecosystem, offering users the chance to enjoy the deep liquidity, speed and affordability of Base combined with Season 3 reward points.

As a decentralized platform, you can jump in simply by connecting your wallet, and making bets. Markets here are deeply liquid yes, but focussed mostly on short-term (think hourly) predictions rather than long-term alternatives. 

Experiment with all three of these platforms! 

Verdict

So there you have it, clear as day. You need to be considering prediction markets as part of your crypto strategy, but it doesn’t have to be Kalshi. Instead, practice on testnet prediction markets that might qualify you for airdrops at the same time, or get stuck right into Polymarket, Myriad and Limitless.