Allium: U.S.-Linked Wallets Traded $571M on Polymarket Politics Despite U.S. Block
The on-chain report says U.S.-linked flow skewed toward geopolitics markets that regulated U.S. venues typically don’t list.
An on-chain analysis from Allium estimates U.S.-linked wallets traded $571 million notional in Polymarket political markets over the past 12 months, despite the platform blocking U.S. users by IP address. The same analysis suggests U.S.-linked activity leaned into geopolitics and novelty contracts that regulated U.S. prediction venues generally avoid listing.
Key Takeaways
- U.S.-linked wallets accounted for $571 million notional in Polymarket political markets over the trailing 12 months in Allium’s analysis, the largest country cohort identified.
- Hong Kong-linked wallets ranked second at $422 million notional over the same window.
- Polymarket blocks U.S. users by IP address, but Allium argues a VPN plus a crypto wallet and stablecoins can still access the offshore venue.
- Country-level totals are directional because Allium said it can tie only about 6% of Polymarket political-market wallets to a country.
Allium: U.S.-Linked Wallets Led Polymarket Political Trading Despite the U.S. Block
Allium’s on-chain report puts a number on a tension traders have assumed for years. Wallets labeled as U.S.-linked traded $571 million notional across Polymarket political markets over the trailing 12 months ending around 2026-07-05, the largest national cohort in the dataset. Hong Kong-linked wallets were next at $422 million.
The headline figure matters less as a clean market-share table and more as a directional signal that U.S. participation is still a major driver of offshore prediction liquidity. Allium explicitly cautioned that it can country-tag only about 6% of Polymarket political-market wallets, which makes the country ranking informative but not definitive.
Polymarket did not immediately respond to a request for comment ahead of U.S. market hours on 2026-07-05.
Why an IP Ban Doesn’t Stop Wallet-Based Access
Polymarket blocks U.S. users by IP address because it cannot legally serve them. That control sits at the front-end layer, while participation is ultimately wallet-based and funded on crypto rails.
Allium’s argument is straightforward: a VPN can mask location, and a user with an existing crypto wallet and stablecoins can transact without a bank, broker, or account opening step that can be denied. In that framing, the access gate is porous because there is no identity check to clear and no payment rail for a bank to stop.
Allium’s country tags come from wallets’ on-chain behavior rather than IP addresses. So while a VPN can defeat an IP block, it does not necessarily prevent a wallet from being labeled “U.S.-linked” by behavioral heuristics. The catch is coverage: with only about 6% of wallets country-tagged, the report is mapping a visible slice of flow, not the full universe.
The U.S. Cohort’s Bets Tilted to Geopolitics and Novelty Markets
The composition of U.S.-linked flow is where the report gets trader-relevant. Geopolitics made up 46% of U.S. notional versus 36% for the platform overall. Elections drew 16% from U.S. wallets versus 32% platform-wide.
In other words, the U.S.-linked cohort underweighted the category that regulated U.S. venues are comfortable listing and overweighted the category they generally are not. Allium pointed to five Iran-war-related markets among the U.S. cohort’s 12 biggest contracts by notional.
The single largest U.S.-linked market cited was not a war contract at all. It was a $20.8 million novelty market on whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would wear a suit. That mix of geopolitics and novelty reads like demand seeking contracts that are hard to replicate onshore.
The report also flagged at least one instance of higher-conviction positioning: Americans at one point placed 53% of their volume on a U.S. invasion of Iran while the rest of the market sat at 26%.
Signals Traders Should Track: Enforcement Risk and Onshore Product Expansion
The immediate catalyst risk is whether Polymarket responds publicly to the Allium findings and whether that response includes changes to access controls beyond IP blocking. If additional gating is introduced that meaningfully disrupts VPN + wallet + stablecoin access, that would be a direct hit to offshore liquidity assumptions.
A second signal is methodological. Follow-on research that expands country-tag coverage beyond roughly 6% of wallets, or that details the heuristics used to label wallets as “U.S.-linked,” would tighten confidence intervals around the $571 million figure and the country ranking.
The longer-duration variable is product. The report contrasted offshore geopolitics-style contracts with regulated U.S. prediction venues that focus mostly on economic data, rate decisions, and elections. If onshore venues broaden listings into geopolitics categories, the real question becomes whether liquidity migrates on compliance or stays offshore for leverage, speed, and breadth.
Offshore Prediction Flow Is Visible On-Chain—But Still Hard to Police
I see this as a market-structure story, not a gotcha. The core tension is that Polymarket’s U.S. controls are IP-based while participation is wallet-based, and Allium’s $571 million estimate is the kind of number that forces that mismatch into the open even if it is directional given the 6% tagging constraint.
The threshold that matters is whether enforcement or product expansion changes the path of least resistance. If access remains VPN + wallet + stablecoins and regulated U.S. venues keep geopolitics off the menu, the setup starts to look structural rather than narrative-driven, with offshore liquidity persisting because it is the only place the contracts exist at scale.
