Solana's Polymarket Rival Drift Draws Over $3 Million in Liquidity in Debut

Crypto’s growing interest in blockchain-based prediction platforms shifted into high gear Monday, as the Solana-based decentralized exchange Drift Protocol released BET.

Short for Bullish on Everything, Drift’s offering is set to compete with Polymarket as a divisive U.S. election season spurs massive amounts of bets on the leading platform. Ramping up to speed, Drift’s product was released in alpha, with users gearing up across two political bets. And those were enough to deliver solid day-one numbers for the newcomer.

“In the first 24 hours after Drift’s BET prediction markets launch, we’ve achieved more than $3.5 million total orderbook liquidity,” tweeted Drift co-founder Cindy Leow.

One key difference is that Polymarket exists on the Ethereum scaling solution Polygon, while BET and Drift live on Solana. According to Drift, BET benefits from Solana’s high speed compared to other blockchain networks and low costs.

Through Drift, users have wagered $124,000 on whether former President Donald Trump will win the 2024 presidential election, penciling in a 48% chance as of writing. Separately, Drift users have bet $186,000 on whether Vice President Kamala Harris will win the popular vote, currently assigning a 71% chance to the Democratic nominee.

While Drift has notched $310,000 in open interest across two contests in little more than a day, the tally is a far cry from that of Polymarket contests, which have been running for several months. Picking the winner of the 2024 race, bettors have so far placed $74 million and $82 million on Harris and Trump, respectively. As of this writing, Trump was a hair ahead of Harris, with a 50% chance of winning the White House compared to her 49% odds.

When it comes to who will win the popular vote, Drift and Polymarket assign Harris identical odds. However, the contest assigning a 71% chance to Harris on Polymarket has seen $111 million in total wagers, with around $9.3 million in total bets positioned behind Harrris.

Much like Polymarket, Drift is off-limits to those in the U.S. and other restricted territories. Across all wagers, Polymarket’s open interest is around $80 million, meaning the value of outstanding bets on Polymarket is more than 250 times that of Drift’s current two markets.

Another big difference between the platforms is that Polymarket collects wagers in the form of USDC, crypto’s second largest stablecoin, while Drift accepts bets in 30 different cryptocurrencies, according to a blog post. Additionally, Drift states that users can “earn yield while in position” through lending, with the opportunity to hedge positions using so-called structured bets.

Following Drift’s foray into the realm of predictions, the value of Drift’s governance token popped. Rising 24% over the past day, DRIFT traded hands at $0.42 on Tuesday.

Though politics is Polymarket’s bread and butter, the platform supports user-generated markets in categories like pop culture, crypto, and sports. According to Drift’s website, users can expect similar betting pools soon, with Formula 1, Solana, and sports markets in the works.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.