Research suggests that a tiny fraction of traders on Polymarket are not only driving market movements but also reaping the majority of the rewards. A recent study by blockchain analytics firm Solidus Labs found that fewer than 1% of wallets on the platform are capturing roughly half of all gains in key markets.
This concentration of profits is evident in Polymarket's politics markets, where 0.55% of profitable maker wallets and 0.26% of winning taker wallets accounted for nearly half of the total gains between December 2025 and February 2026, totaling around $8 million out of $16 million in profits. The findings support earlier research indicating that a small minority of traders drives most price discovery, with around 3% of Polymarket traders responsible for this movement. The significant disparity in profit distribution raises questions about the structural divide between a small group of sophisticated traders and the broader base of participants.
While concentration does not necessarily imply wrongdoing, the report argues that the scale of the imbalance suggests that some traders operate with significant advantages, including greater capital depth, infrastructure, and execution strategies. The study also identified signs of wash trading, with around 15% of volume in some markets showing patterns consistent with self-trading or economically neutral positions. This phenomenon, which has no equivalent in traditional finance, may be driven by incentive farming or manipulation.
As Polymarket prepares for its forthcoming POLY airdrop, which may factor in trading volume as a metric to allocate tokens, the need for market surveillance infrastructure becomes increasingly important.