The Anatomy of a Blockchain Prediction Market: Polymarket in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

Abstract

Using the complete on-chain settlement ledger, we study Polymarket's 2024 U.S. presidential election markets, focusing on the Trump YES price widely quoted as a forecast of the race. Because the platform mints and burns outcome shares inside ordinary trades, naive aggregation overstates turnover. We develop a transaction-level decomposition that separates turnover from net inflow and market activity: in October it reports $391 million of Trump-market turnover against $958 million of naive volume. Corrected price impact reveals a shallower market: moving the October forecast by five percentage points cost $9.1 million rather than $15.6 million. Capital entered on both sides of the race throughout the month, consistent with heterogeneous beliefs rather than one-sided manipulation. The overstatement holds across 249 markets and is largest in thin, young ones.