📝 Editor’s Note

This was an extraordinary week both on and offchain due to the US Presidential Election, where crypto-powered prediction markets played a major role in tracking the final outcome. Polymarket especially, generated billions in volume, and made headlines in the political community as it signaled the election result hours before mainstream news outlets did.

As such, before we dive into our regularly scheduled coverage on Bitcoin, we are also bringing you bonus coverage on prediction markets. As usual, the chain —and OurNetwork's set of stellar analysts— tells a unique story.

Polymarket | Ostium | Bitcoin ETFs | Rootstock | BOB

• Polymarket, a decentralized prediction market platform, experienced significant activity during the 2024 US presidential election. Users placed bets on various outcomes, with the platform's trading volume exceeding $3.11B in the past 30 days. Since late September, Polymarket has witnessed a remarkable surge in trading volume. Initially hovering around $17M daily, volume skyrocketed to over $376M on Nov. 5, coinciding with Election Day — that's a staggering 22-fold increase.

• Analysis of trading volume reveals that 27% of trades fall within the $1k–$5k range, with another 25% in the $100–$1k range, highlighting strong participation from retail users. Additionally, over 20% of the total volume is from trades above $20,000, emphasizing the influence of major market players.

• Polymarket's daily active users surged to a platform record on Nov. 5 at 57.3K, growing from under 400 in early May. This growth, coupled with high retention as former users return, reflects strong engagement. Nov. 5 also saw a record 15.8K new wallets join the platform.

• Ostium is making macro tradable. With a wallet and as little as 10 USDC, users can long or short perpetuals on anything—from forex and commodities to crypto and equity indices. Over 65% of Ostium's cumulative volume has come from real world assets, with USD/JPY dominating volumes amid recent volatility with the Yen and Bank of Japan rate decisions. While a smaller share of volume, CL/USD (oil) has seen the second most number of discrete trades, representing over 20% of the trades on the platform.

• Trading volume has closely tracked the incidence of macro events related to each asset. In the case of commodities (dominated by oil), volumes spiked to all-time highs on Oct. 25, the day Israel launched retaliatory attacks against Iran, amid fears of Iranian oil field damage and downstream price impacts.

• Ostium recently launched "Strategies," a product atop its trading engine that allows traders to automate trading strategies like "If TrumpWin probability >70%, long Gold" atop prediction market data. Over 280 strategies were built by traders on Ostium in the 10 days prior to the election, with over 100 of those election night alone.

• Grayscale, once the leading Bitcoin ETF holder, lost its top position to BlackRock following consistent monthly sell-offs. In just 10 months, ETF issuers' collective BTC holdings surged from 600,000 to over 1M, capturing 5% of Bitcoin's circulating supply. This sustained buying pressure significantly contributed to Bitcoin reaching a new all-time high, highlighting the intensifying institutional appetite for BTC.

• Daily BTC net flows show aggressive accumulation by issuers in the 30 days leading up to the US election. Despite recent sell pressure from Ark/21Shares and Bitwise, and the broader token price surge post-election, BlackRock and Fidelity have emerged as the biggest winners.

• The percentage of BTC held by issuers has shown a slow and steady rise since the start of the year, despite price fluctuations. While ETFs have been a major driver of Bitcoin's price gains, issuers continue accumulating BTC, signalling a potential long-term investment strategy by these institutions.

• Rootstock is the leading Bitcoin Layer 2 segment for DeFi on Bitcoin. Its innovative roadmap (BitVMX and Union Bridge) and focus on interoperability drive secure and scalable DeFi innovation. In Q4 2024, the average total value locked (TVL) reached $171M, a 68% surge compared to the last quarter of 2023. This growth is fueled by partnerships with protocols like Sushi and Uniswap, and the rising demand for Bitcoin-based DeFi.

• Rootstock's onboarding of Sushiswap as a new partner and decentralized exchange in June has not only diversified its offerings but also fueled impressive month-over-month TVL growth. This collaboration enhances Rootstock's DeFi capabilities, bridging Bitcoin with the broader DeFi landscape.

• Launched in September 2024, RootstockCollective is a new DAO designed to support builders and incentivize projects on Bitcoin. Through RootstockCollective, builders gain access to grants and governance rights. Since its inception, an impressive 6,645,263 RIF have already been staked as of Nov. 6, 2024.

• The amount of daily unique users on BOB have grown steadily following its May 1 launch, peaking at 8,192 on June 4. Over the summer, however, BOB’s daily activity has largely consolidated between 3,000 and 3,500 unique users. BOB’s summer activity plateau may imply that the ‘DeFi on Bitcoin’ narrative has started losing mindshare. Not for long though — BOB’s daily unique users are ripping again, averaging 5,589 over the past month and bringing the platform's lifetime tally to 172,379 unique users.

• In a similar vein, the amount of BOB’s daily transactions hit an all-time high of 145,224 on May 27, before hardlocking between 55-65,000 over the next three months. Recently, BOB’s daily transaction activity broke from its sideway range to a 4-week average of 74,033 - a roughly 27% increase.

• BOB’s TVL currently sits at just over $120M, including $68M WBTC, $24M ETH, $14M tBTC and $8M eSOV.