Crypto wallet MetaMask plans to work with Polymarket later this year to add prediction markets to its services, wanting to join the growing trend that interests Wall Street. This partnership will allow users to access Polymarket directly from MetaMask’s wallet, making it easy for them to buy and sell “shares” and wager on real-life events like elections, sports, and company earnings. Gal Eldar, MetaMask’s global product leader, shared that this collaboration is part of their goal to transform from just a crypto wallet into a bridge to worldwide, accessible finance. “With each new feature, we offer the users more ways to handle their money: they can trade, earn, invest, speculate, and diversify while keeping complete control of their assets”, he explained. The prediction markets on MetaMask, which is developed by Consensys, will be available in most places except for the US, UK, France, Singapore, Poland, Thailand, Australia, Belgium, Taiwan, and Ontario, Canada. Prediction markets have become one of the most popular applications of crypto, especially with a surge in interest around the US elections in November 2024. Wall Street is noticing this trend too, as Polymarket recently received a $2 billion investment from the Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, raising the value of the platform to $9 billion.

Although trading volumes in prediction markets have decreased from their peak, the two biggest platforms, Polymarket and Kalshi, still reported $1.43 billion and $2.74 billion in trading volume in September, breaking their previous total record from last November, according to DefiLlama data. Even that the trading activity has slowed down, Eldar mentioned that prediction markets remain one of the most significant parts of blockchain technology because they focus on discovering the truth. This comes as MetaMask also introduced perpetual futures through a partnership with Hyperliquid on Wednesday, aiming to attract users from traditional centralized exchanges in the thriving perpetuals market. Recently, decentralized trading of perpetuals has surged, reaching about $770 billion in the past month, with Hyperliquid leading the way. However, these trading numbers are still much smaller than what centralized exchanges like Binance achieve, partly because they offer a simpler experience for users. MetaMask hopes that its new features will provide its users with an experience similar to centralized exchanges while still enjoying the safety advantages of decentralized platforms.