Prediction markets just crossed $28.4 billion in monthly volume. But, that is not a retail number.
In May 2026, a significant batch of firms made significant moves simultaneously, here are our top finds:
- Galaxy Digital executed a $10M OTC swap on a U.S. crypto legislative outcome, the first publicly documented use of a prediction market as a capital-markets instrument.
- DRW, Wintermute, and IMC Trading each built dedicated desks to apply HFT-style arbitrage to a market that retail participants have been pricing by intuition.
- Robinhood routed its World Cup contracts to Rothera, its own CFTC-licensed exchange, instead of Kalshi. One routing decision. Three structural advantages captured independently.
The pattern is not new. It is the same playbook from crypto derivatives, 2019 to 2021.
Once professional market-makers identify structural inefficiencies, spreads compress, volume shifts permanently toward informed capital, and the market never looks the same again.










