Over the past seven issues, we’ve followed the same thread: how crypto companies moved from sideline billboards to World Cup sponsorships (a brief history of sponsorships), how stars signed endorsement deals with exchanges (five years of athlete endorsements), how clubs turned fan passion into tokens (fan tokens), how collectibles evolved from player cards to on-chain assets (Sorare and FIFA Collect), how prediction markets became new rivals to traditional bookmakers (market structure), and how a "probability of winning" is actually produced (odds methodology).
Episode seven covers the same topic—how crypto has gradually entered football. Now, six days before kickoff, we shift the focus from history to the present, examining just one question: By the night before the tournament begins, what scale have these on-chain markets reached?
Data as of June 5, 2026. All prices and volumes are subject to change at any time and may differ at the time of publication.
Act One · One Platform, One Contract, 1.6 Billion
First, let's look at a number.
On the Polymarket platform alone, the "World Cup Winner" contract has accumulated a trading volume of approximately $1.6 billion as of June 5 [1] (as shown on Polymarket’s official market page; this contract launched in July 2025).
No World Cup matches have been played yet.
This didn't appear overnight, but rather follows a clear upward trajectory:
March 25: Approximately $368 million [2]
May: Breakthrough of $1.2 billion [3]
June 5: Approximately $1.6 billion [1]
The final two months before the event are the steepest part of this curve—as the kickoff approaches, rosters are announced, and warm-up match results are released, each new piece of information pushes trading volume higher.
Broaden your perspective to the entire sector: the annual trading volume of the prediction market industry is projected to grow from approximately $16 billion in 2024 to around $64 billion in 2025, a fourfold increase [2]. Some analysts anticipate it could surpass $300 billion by 2026 [2].
Four years ago, the 2022 Qatar World Cup was the first major event where Polymarket saw significant trading volume [5]. Four years later, a single championship contract has reached a volume of $1.6 billion. It took just one World Cup for it to evolve from a niche experiment into a multi-billion-dollar market.
Act Two · How Contracts Come to Life in Real Time with Match Results
1.6 billion is for the "Champion" contract alone. But what truly comes alive after the match starts are the individual match contracts covering every game.
Polymarket offers approximately 100 markets under its World Cup category, covering all 104 matches; combined with Kalshi, the two platforms together list hundreds of contracts—ranging from tournament winner and top scorer to group advancement and match outcomes (win/draw/loss) [6].
Grouped contracts are already trading. For example, as of June 4: Group A—Mexico approximately 53%, South Korea approximately 23.5%, Czech Republic approximately 18.5%, South Africa approximately 6.3%; Group B—Switzerland approximately 56%, Canada approximately 31%; Group D—United States approximately 39%, Turkey approximately 33% (all figures represent market-implied probabilities, provided for market observation only and not as predictions) [6].
The opening match has been listed: Mexico vs. South Africa on June 11 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City (renamed Estadio Ciudad de México during the event), at 3:00 PM Eastern Time. Contracts include not only "who wins" but also细分 markets such as "first-half win/draw/loss" [7].
How do these contracts change with match results? The mechanism is straightforward: each contract price fluctuates between $0.01 and $0.99, with the price directly reflecting the implied probability—$0.53 means the market assigns approximately a 53% chance. As the match progresses and the score changes, the price adjusts accordingly. Once a team is mathematically eliminated, its "Win Yes" contract immediately drops to zero; the same applies to its "Advance Yes" contract. Settlement is handled on-chain: contracts run on the Polygon chain, using Gnosis’s Conditional Tokens framework (an ERC-1155 token standard) to track positions, and UMA’s optimistic oracle determines payouts after match results are confirmed [8]. Each correct contract pays out $1; incorrect ones expire worthless.
This mechanism introduces a perspective never seen in traditional sports media. On Polymarket, there is a contract asking: Will Mexico’s host venue be relocated due to security concerns? This market launched in late February, with approximately 96% of funds betting “no,” and total trading volume reaching about $116,000 [6]. Pricing “event operational risk” itself as a tradable contract is something unique to on-chain prediction markets—ESPN won’t offer you a “relocation probability.”
Act Three · Prediction Markets Are Being Co-opted
If volume speaks to "scale," then several events that occurred in the months leading up to the launch indicate that "this market is being embraced by serious infrastructure and official institutions."
The settlement layer has been switched to a stablecoin. On February 5, stablecoin issuer Circle announced a partnership with Polymarket to migrate the platform’s collateral from “bridged USDC” (USDC.e) to “native USDC,” introducing pUSD, a settlement unit pegged 1:1 to USDC [9]. The difference lies in the fact that bridged USDC relies on third-party cross-chain bridges to move assets across blockchains—bridges that have historically been vulnerable to attacks—while native USDC is issued directly by Circle’s regulated entity and is redeemable 1:1 for U.S. dollars. Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan called this an “infrastructure upgrade” [9]. In other words, the settlement layer for prediction markets is now a regulated U.S. dollar stablecoin.
Oracles have arrived. Myriad, operated by Dastan, the parent company of Decrypt, launched a World Cup market before the June tournament, featuring over 75 contracts covering every match, with results settled using Chainlink’s oracle and real-time data provided by sports data provider 55 Tech [10]. The oracle solves a simple but critical problem: how can on-chain contracts “know” the true outcomes of real-world matches—achieved through this decentralized data feed and automated settlement.
FIFA itself has also embraced it. In April 2026, FIFA appointed ADI Predictstreet, a prediction market platform licensed in Gibraltar, as the first official partner in World Cup history for the "prediction market category" [11]. Due to CFTC jurisdictional issues in the United States, ADI Predictstreet cannot operate directly in the U.S., so it entered the U.S. market through Fanatics Markets.
Looking at these three things together, the conclusion becomes clear: before Phase Seven, crypto’s role in football was limited to “sponsoring jerseys and issuing tokens”; by the night before the tournament, it had evolved—settlements now use regulated USD stablecoins, match outcomes are determined by decentralized oracles, and FIFA has even created an entirely new official partnership category to formally embrace it. This marks a fundamental shift in crypto’s position within football.
Asset snapshot before the event starts
Take a quick look at the status of crypto assets directly related to football on the eve of the match:
Chiliz (CHZ, the chain behind fan tokens): approximately $0.033–$0.035 (early June, multiple sources, slight variations among sources) [12]
National team fan tokens: Argentina (ARG) at approximately $0.41, Portugal (POR) at approximately $0.37; Belgium (BELG) issued at $1 on June 3 [12]
Closing · An entity that is not on the sponsorship list but has already permeated the foundation
It is essential to clearly distinguish between two categories: prediction markets (such as Kalshi and Polymarket, regulated under the U.S. CFTC’s “event contract” framework) and sports betting (regulated under state licensing pathways)—their legal classifications differ, which was the core point covered in Episode 06 of this series. On the eve of the games, this regulatory boundary remains in flux: Massachusetts issued a ban on Kalshi’s sports contracts in January this year, Nevada initiated enforcement action against Polymarket’s parent company, prompting Polymarket to exit the state, and Arizona has filed multiple criminal charges against Kalshi; meanwhile, the Ninth Circuit Court is expected to issue a ruling by mid-2026, which may conflict with the earlier Third Circuit ruling supporting Kalshi, potentially leading to a Supreme Court review [13][14].
The same World Cup contract may have entirely different legal statuses across different jurisdictions. Some U.S. states prohibit it, mainland China bans all gambling, the regulatory path under the EU’s MiCA framework is still evolving, and some countries have blocked related platforms. Please verify the rules applicable in your location.
After the seventh round, the on-chain numbers the night before the tournament began told us one thing: although crypto companies are not on FIFA’s list of top sponsors—where Coca-Cola, Visa, Adidas, and Bank of America in the banking category sit—they have already penetrated the settlement layer, prediction layer, and official partnership roster of this World Cup.
The World Cup kicks off on June 11. But the on-chain market has already been playing for a year.