I've been watching the 2026 World Cup differently to most people.
Prediction markets have moved past the point where you can reasonably call them a niche crypto product. Monthly trading volume hit $25.7 billion in March 2026. Combined volume on Kalshi and Polymarket has already surpassed the average monthly amount wagered through US legal sportsbooks. Industry projections put annual prediction market volume at $240 billion by the end of 2026, with longer-term forecasts pointing toward a trillion-dollar market.
And here's the detail I keep coming back to: 82% of Polymarket users traded under $10,000 across Q1. The average trade is $35. This isn't institutions moving large positions. It's retail participants who want to put $50 on a political outcome, a sports result, or a crypto price milestone. Mainstream users. And they're arriving on platforms that, in many cases, weren't built to serve them efficiently.
That's where WalletConnect comes in.
The moment that matters most isn't the market. It's the deposit.
Most prediction market platforms are losing users before they've placed a single trade.
A user arrives wanting to trade. They have USDC on the mainnet. The platform runs on Polygon. Getting from A to B means finding a bridge, approving a transaction, paying gas on two networks, waiting for multiple confirmations, and checking whether the funds actually arrived. For a retail user putting $35 on a match result, that process is not going to complete. They leave. The platform never knows they were there.
WalletConnect Pay removes every step between deciding to deposit and being ready to trade. The user selects an amount and a source exchange wallet, self-custodial holding, or fiat onramp and WalletConnect Pay handles cross-chain routing, settlement, and confirmation without them leaving the product. One clean flow. Funded user. Ready to trade.
Polymarket and Myriad both run on WalletConnect. Every wallet connection on those platforms runs through the WalletConnect Network 700+ compatible wallets, encrypted end-to-end, consistent across every platform the user has ever connected a wallet to. That consistency is what turns a friction point into a habit.
And the moment that determines whether they come back is the payout.
When a position resolves, the user expects to receive their winnings quickly and cleanly.
On most platforms, what actually happens is: the user submits a withdrawal, the platform processes it manually or through a fragmented backend, and the user monitors the transaction themselves, hoping it lands in the right wallet on the right chain. The experience is the opposite of the excitement of winning.
WalletConnect Pay handles this differently. All the user does is connect their wallet and sign a gasless transaction. That single step confirms they control the wallet giving the platform the proof it needs for compliant outbound settlement and removes the manual address copy-paste that most payout flows still depend on today. The payout routes directly to their wallet, with sanctions screening running on the way out, Travel Rule data attached, and a confirmation the user actually sees inside the product.
A platform that pays out fast and cleanly is one users return to. A platform with a slow, uncertain payout experience loses them after the first win the worst possible moment to create a negative impression.
The compliance piece matters more than most operators realise right now.
MiCA enforcement is live. The CFTC framework for event contracts is established. The platforms that will operate in regulated markets in two years are the ones building the compliance layer now, not the ones retrofitting it after regulators ask for it.
WalletConnect carries Travel Rule data fields (originator and beneficiary information) through every payment flow from the start. Coinbase and Sumsub both use WalletConnect for exactly this layer. Transaction screening runs at the point of deposit, before funds reach the platform. Geoblocking operates at the wallet connection layer, not just IP level. The architecture is designed for the regulatory environment these platforms are already operating in..
If you're building a prediction market and want compliant, scalable infrastructure, I'd like to talk!
The World Cup has made one thing very clear: the growth trajectory here is real, the user base is mainstream, and the infrastructure decisions made now will determine who scales and who doesn't.
The conversation I want to have is with operators who are thinking seriously about the full user journey, not just the markets they're listing, but how users connect, how they fund accounts, how they receive payouts, and how the whole thing holds up under regulatory scrutiny.
This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. References to third-party platforms and trading volumes are sourced from publicly available information and are accurate to the date of publication.