- Recent research shows Polymarket trades are double-counted across most public dashboards.
- The issue stems from duplicated maker-taker events emitted by the platform’s smart contracts.
- According to the findings, actual volume is roughly half of what many dashboards report.
Polymarket, a leading prediction market platform, is under scrutiny after an analysis by Storm Slivkoff revealed that the trading volumes reported by the platform may be systematically overstated across many public analytics dashboards.
The controversy has drawn attention from industry experts, data analysts, and market participants, raising questions about how trade activity is measured and reported on decentralized prediction markets.
Polymarket emits separate OrderFilled events for makers and takers
Research by Storm Slivkoff, a partner at Paradigm, which was later highlighted by Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang, identified a technical discrepancy in Polymarket’s on-chain smart contract data.
Slivkoff found that the platform emits separate OrderFilled events for the maker and the taker side of each trade.
While each event is accurate on its own, most public dashboards aggregate all events indiscriminately, effectively counting the same trade twice.
found a pretty major data bug
it turns out almost every major dashboard has been double-counting Polymarket volume (not related to wash trading)
this is because Polymarket’s onchain data contains redundant representations of each trade. receipts ⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/rQJEzs2Rfl
— storm (@notnotstorm) December 8, 2025
Simple transactions illustrate the problem. A single trade for a YES token priced at $4.13 produced two identical events for the same amount, which dashboards then summed to report $8.26 in traded volume.
Slivkoff noted that the bug affects both notional volume (the number of contracts traded) and dollar-denominated cash volume (the dollar value exchanged), thereby inflating the representation of each trade.
Importantly, the discrepancy is not caused by wash trading; it arises purely from the way Polymarket’s contracts emit event data.
Polymarket disputes the double-counting allegation
Polymarket’s internal team quickly disputed the claims, stating that the official site reports taker-side volume without double-counting, consistent with standard industry practice.
The platform emphasized that the issue primarily affects third-party dashboards that rely on raw event streams from the smart contracts and do not apply de-duplication logic to account for redundant entries.
Notably, several major data providers, including DefiLlama, Allium Labs, and Blockworks, confirmed they are updating their dashboards to correct for the discrepancy.
Some data vendors defended their current methodologies, pointing out that more sophisticated dashboards have been accounting for the distinction since 2024 but have not formally documented their approaches.
Other providers criticized Paradigm for potential bias, noting that the firm holds an investment in Kalshi, a U.S.-based prediction market competitor.
Broader market implications
Beyond the immediate question of reported volume, the episode highlights broader challenges in accurately measuring activity on prediction market platforms.
Low-priced contracts can create notional volume that is disproportionate to the actual capital at risk, making traditional volume metrics potentially misleading.
Experts have suggested that measures such as open interest and fee revenue may provide a clearer picture of platform activity.
The timing of the disclosure is significant: it coincides with Polymarket’s plans for a full U.S. relaunch following CFTC regulatory approval and with anticipated valuations in the $12–$15 billion range.
The platform is also exploring in-house market-making operations that could trade against customers, which may invite increased regulatory scrutiny and invite comparisons with competitors like Kalshi.