Polymarket Adds Credit and Debit Card Support as Crypto Bets Surge

Polymarket has teamed up with MoonPay to make its prediction markets more accessible, though U.S. users are still blocked.

2 min read

Jul 24, 2024

Decentralized prediction market Polymarket has teamed up with payments firm MoonPay to allow users to buy cryptocurrency with credit and debit cards, or via bank transfers, to allow them to bet on the outcomes of hot topics.

The Wednesday announcement comes as trading volume on the popular platform surges amid growing interest in betting on United States elections-related predictions. Up until now, users had to deposit the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) onto the website in order to make bets.

Users will now be able to use credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal accounts to make purchases, according to the announcement.

Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan said that the move would help give access to real-time information and create a “more informed public.”

Polymarket is not available to users in the United States, and that will continue to be the case, a MoonPay representative confirmed to Decrypt. It’s still unclear whether MoonPay will also institute any further restrictions to try and counter American users who access the platform through workarounds, such as VPN services.

Polymarket is an increasingly prominent platform that allows users to bet on everything from celebrity pregnancies and the war in the Middle East to the future price of Bitcoin.

July is the platform's biggest month on record for trading volume, with Polymarket—which runs on runs on Ethereum scaling network Polygon—setting daily records on Sunday when Joe Biden dropped out of the U.S. presidential race and endorsed his VP Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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