Americans trade on Polymarket despite US ban: U.S.-linked wallets executed $571 million in notional value on Polymarket’s political markets over the trailing 12 months, a figure derived from onchain trading records rather than platform account registries. Polymarket blocks U.S. users by IP address, but those network controls were commonly bypassed with VPNs and existing crypto wallets, producing substantial activity tied to U.S.-linked wallets that appears onchain and therefore remains visible even when the platform’s political markets operate beyond U.S. regulatory oversight, and these onchain trades remain observable on public ledgers.
Polymarket enforces a block on U.S. users by IP address, but the dataset used for analysis is based on onchain wallets rather than platform account records. That onchain basis allows activity originating from users who bypass IP blocks to remain visible in blockchain records. Allium ties about 6% of Polymarket’s wallets to a country using wallets’ onchain behavior rather than IP addresses. The report states these country tags and resulting figures should be read as directional rather than exact.
Users commonly bypass Polymarket’s IP blocks with VPNs combined with existing crypto wallets, enabling access to political markets despite network-level restrictions. “There is no account for a regulator to deny, no identity check to clear and no payment for a bank to stop, so a VPN, software that masks a user’s location, plus an existing crypto wallet is enough to get in.” Onchain trades remain observable on public ledgers, which allows aggregation and attribution even when platform-level controls are in place. Blocking access did not end U.S. participation, and the largest single political market moved offshore while remaining visible onchain and beyond U.S. oversight.
Allium’s methods therefore rely on onchain behavioral signals to assign country tags and to measure U.S.-linked activity. Those assignments are presented as directional estimates rather than precise counts.
On markets that have resolved, U.S.-linked wallets backed the winning outcome 81.9% of the time, compared with 80.3% for everyone else. Those percentages refer specifically to resolved markets in the dataset. The analysis is based on onchain wallet activity rather than platform account records.
Geopolitics accounted for 46% of U.S. notional volume versus 36% platform-wide, while elections accounted for 16% of U.S. volume versus 32% platform-wide. Fifty-three percent of U.S. volume was concentrated on a U.S. invasion of Iran, compared with 26% for the rest of the market. The dataset shows a larger share of U.S. notional allocated to geopolitical markets and a smaller share allocated to elections relative to the platform average. The concentration of U.S. volume on the Iran invasion was especially pronounced among reported U.S.-linked wallets.
The comparison outlines differing priorities and allocations between U.S.-linked wallets and the broader Polymarket user base. These figures are derived from onchain wallet behavior and are presented as directional estimates rather than precise counts.
Among the twelve biggest markets identified in the dataset, five were bets related to the Iran war, and the largest single market represented a $20.8 million wager on Volodymyr Zelenskyy wearing a suit. These twelve markets included multiple geopolitics-focused outcomes, with the Iran-war-related markets occupying a substantial share of the largest positions. The $20.8 million market on Zelenskyy was the largest individual political market noted in the analysis and is reported as part of the onchain activity captured in the dataset.
The report concludes that blocking access by IP did not end U.S. participation and that the largest single political market moved offshore while remaining observable onchain and beyond U.S. oversight. Onchain visibility means trades remain detectable on public ledgers even when platform-level controls restrict direct access by U.S. users. The offshore placement of the largest political market therefore reduced the practical effect of the IP-based block for the observed onchain activity.
The analysis contrasts Polymarket’s offshore political offerings with the compliant U.S. alternatives: Kalshi and Polymarket’s compliant U.S. arm primarily list markets tied to economic data, whereas the offshore Polymarket markets included outcomes such as regime change and ceasefires. That contrast highlights a difference in subject matter between the U.S.-compliant products and the offshore political markets captured in the onchain dataset. These observations are presented as part of the dataset’s findings on market composition and regulatory boundaries.
Polymarket’s onchain records show that U.S. participants continued to trade on its offshore political markets despite U.S. bans and platform-level IP blocks. Those trades remained visible on public ledgers, and blocking access did not eliminate U.S. involvement; instead, significant political-market activity shifted offshore where it was detectable onchain but situated beyond U.S. regulatory oversight. The persistence of U.S.-linked activity is evident in the onchain dataset used in the analysis.
