SynFutures Launches Leverages Perps Tracking Polymarket Election Markets

SynFutures, a decentralized derivatives protocol, is getting in on the booming prediction market action for the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

On Sept. 19, SynFutures launched perpetual futures contracts tracking Polymarket's presidential election markets.

SynFutures’ TRUMP-USDC-PERP and HARRIS-USDC-PERP contracts let users bet on the former president and Republican candidate, Donald Trump, or the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, to win the election with up to 10x leverage.

The contracts track the odds generated by Polymarket’s election market, which currently favors Harris with a 51% chance while Trump is at 48%. The TRUMP-USDC-PERP contract is trading for $0.47, while HARRIS-USDC-PERP last changed hands for $0.52. Wining contacts will pay out at $1 each.

Perpetual futures contracts in crypto allow traders to speculate on price movements without holding the underlying asset.

The contracts are set to settle on Nov. 4, 2024, just before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5. Open interest in the contracts currently sits at $25,711.

Polymarket adoption surges

The launch comes as Polymarket is enjoying a sustained surge in adoption amid the popularity of its election markets.

Users have placed $963.1 million worth of predictions on who will win the presidential election to date, alongside $213 million worth of predictions on its popular vote market.

Polymarket has posted new all-time highs for volume and active users each month from May, with the platform hosting $472.9 million worth of trades from 63,616 traders in August — marking year-over-year increases of 5,900% and 2,985%, according to Dune data compiled by Richard Chen.

The platform again appears on track to post new highs this month, Polymarket hosted record daily trading volume of $37.3 million on Sept. 11 and record daily users of 12,649 on Sept. 18. Polymarket’s election markets have accounted for roughly two-thirds of volume and users on the platform in September so far.

However, ParaFi Capital, Polymarket’s largest investor, recently noted that the platform’s success isn’t limited to election markets. In a thread posted on Aug.2, ParaFi Capital said 58% of the platform's then 70,000 total addresses began trading non-election markets.

ParaFi also identified that nearly 42% of the users who first used Polymarket to place election wagers have also engaged with other markets on the platform since.

Some of the most active non-election pools on Polymarket have included Fed rate cut markets with $58.7 million in wagers, the Super Bowl champion market with $54.7 million in trades, and spot Ethereum ETF approval markets with $13.2 million in volume.

According to DeFiLlama, Polymarket’s total value locked (TVL), which includes deposits and open interest, currently sits at $117.62 million. For comparison, notable rivals including TG Casino, Azuro, and Lumi Finance trail far behind with TVLs of $9.5 million, $7.8 million, and $5.93 million, respectively.