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U.S. Wallets Traded $571 Million on Polymarket Politics Despite the Ban

By Isaac • July 5, 2026 2:21 pm • Comments

Polymarket blocks U.S. users on the front end. The onchain footprint still tells a more complicated story.

New analysis from Allium says U.S.-linked wallets were the largest national political-market crowd it could identify on Polymarket, despite the platform’s U.S. geoblock.

The headline number is $571 million in political-market notional over the trailing year.

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The caveat is just as important. Allium’s country tags come from onchain behavior, not IP records, and the firm could tie only about 6% of Polymarket political-market wallets to a country.

The July 5 CoinDesk coverage puts the number in market terms: U.S.-linked wallets traded about $571 million in Polymarket political-market notional over the trailing 12 months.

CoinDesk said that was more than any other country inside Allium’s tagged sample. The platform itself blocks U.S. users by IP address because it cannot legally serve them.

The trading mix was also different. CoinDesk said geopolitics made up 46% of U.S.-linked notional versus 36% platform-wide, while elections made up 16% for the U.S.-linked group versus 32% platform-wide.

That split matters for market structure. Regulated U.S. venues tend to offer a narrower menu, while offshore crypto-native markets can list foreign conflict, novelty, and event contracts that U.S. users may still try to reach through indirect paths.

CoinDesk also noted that U.S.-linked wallets did not pick winners better than other groups once markets resolved. The data points to broad demand and speculation, not proven superior information.

The story is not a clean claim that every tagged wallet broke a law. It is a sign that IP restrictions can leave measurable onchain activity outside the protected brokerage-style lane.

The official Allium report anchors the wallet tags and the key limits around the data.

Allium says its country tags are onchain, not IP-based. That means the firm is reading wallet behavior and patterns rather than claiming a direct user identity or location record for every trader.

The firm tied roughly 6% of Polymarket political-market wallets to a country. Inside that limited set, it counted 3,776 U.S.-linked wallets, about four times the next country by wallet count.

Allium also put the U.S.-linked group at $571 million in notional, making it the largest country-linked political crowd by volume in the sample. Hong Kong and Indonesia were close behind in volume with fewer wallets.

The firm checked resolved markets and found no meaningful edge for the U.S.-linked group. That weakens the idea that the whole pattern can be explained by privileged information, even though Allium left that risk open in specific cases.

The best reading is directional. The geoblock did not erase U.S.-linked participation from the onchain record, and political prediction markets still attracted heavy U.S.-tagged activity where the data could identify it.

Cointelegraph added the regulatory timeline around Polymarket access and Allium’s findings.

Its coverage notes that Polymarket cut off U.S. users after a 2022 settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That date is central because the Allium data sits after the platform had already moved to block U.S. access.

Cointelegraph also distinguishes the offshore Polymarket platform from Polymarket US, the regulated U.S. venue with a narrower set of markets. That distinction helps explain why demand can fragment across different rails.

For crypto markets, the access problem is partly technical and partly regulatory. A website can block IP addresses, while wallet-based trading, stablecoin settlement, and offshore market design can still create hard enforcement edges.

The Allium data does not mean geoblocks have no effect. It means geoblocks are one layer of control, and blockchain-native venues can produce a visible residue of activity beyond that layer.

That is why prediction markets are becoming a policy fight as much as a trading story. The product sits between information markets, wagering, derivatives, stablecoins, and user-location controls.

Polymarket did not build this debate in a vacuum. Demand for event contracts has grown while regulators in multiple jurisdictions argue over whether the products look like betting, derivatives, information markets, or some combination of all three.

The U.S.-linked wallet finding makes that debate harder to wave away. If blocked users still show up in the onchain data, platform design and jurisdictional access controls will stay under scrutiny.

For PCN’s market audience, the lesson is straightforward. Onchain infrastructure can preserve activity that brokerage-style rails would normally filter earlier, and regulators are now looking directly at that gap.

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