Research has shown that a small minority of traders has a significant impact on market prices, but new data suggests that an even smaller group is reaping the majority of the rewards. A report from blockchain analytics firm Solidus Labs found that on Polymarket, a tiny fraction of wallets is capturing a substantial portion of the profits, with fewer than 1% of wallets taking home roughly half of the gains.
Between December 2025 and February 2026, just 0.55% of profitable maker wallets captured 50% of gains, while 0.26% of winning taker wallets accounted for nearly the same share, resulting in approximately $8 million in profits for each of these small groups. This data supports previous academic research which found that about 3% of Polymarket traders drive most price discovery. The report highlights that this concentration of wealth does not necessarily imply any wrongdoing, but rather that some traders have a significant advantage due to their sophistication, capital, or speed of action. However, the scale of the imbalance suggests a structural divide between a small group of traders operating with significant advantages and the broader base of participants.
The report also notes that some traders may be engaging in wash trading, with roughly 15% of volume in some markets showing patterns consistent with self-trading or economically neutral positions. This has led to speculation that some traders may be incentive farming in anticipation of Polymarket's forthcoming POLY airdrop, which is expected to factor in trading volume as a metric to allocate tokens.