A waitlist of more than 1 million users converted into live trading access on Sept. 9, when World pushed its prediction market out of the Phantom wallet and onto its own site at world.xyz, carrying a catalog the company says has passed 150,000 contracts.
The platform routes orders to liquidity providers on Solana and settles payouts in CASH, Phantom's dollar-backed stablecoin, without requiring a brokerage account or exchange registration. Contracts are binary "yes" and "no" pairs priced between $0 and $1, where the price reflects the market's implied probability and the winning side settles at $1.
"World's rapid growth and 1 million user waitlist reflects the massive demand for next-generation prediction markets on Solana," Johann Eid, chief business officer at Chainlink Labs, said. "Chainlink is powering this growth with the high-speed data and infrastructure World needs for reliable, immediate market resolutions."
Resolution runs through Chainlink Data Streams and the Chainlink Runtime Environment, which determine outcomes once a game ends or an event reaches its deadline. World says the setup removes the human resolution panels, token-holder votes, and dispute windows that delay settlement on older oracle designs. Sports markets require verified final scores, Federal Reserve contracts depend on official policy decisions, and election markets need confirmed results under predetermined rules.
The launch slate covers every NFL regular-season game, seven soccer leagues, Formula 1, the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, and the Fed's next policy decision. World has not disclosed first-day volume, open interest, or its fee structure, so its initial share of prediction market activity cannot yet be measured against Kalshi or Polymarket.
150,000 markets is a supply figure, not a volume figure
World's disclosed market count measures contracts launched, not money traded or active customers. That distinction matters because the comparison set is large and growing: prediction market volume across Kalshi, Polymarket, and Polymarket US reached a record $50.59 billion in July, according to data reported in August, with Kalshi accounting for $37.7 billion and Polymarket's international and U.S. platforms combining for $12.9 billion. Those figures are notional turnover rather than deposits or revenue, because contracts can change hands several times before settlement.
The waitlist is the asset World is monetizing. Phantom says more than 20 million people use its app, and World's service has accepted positions since June 1, 2026, with the wallet integration going public in July. Ramzy Ali, head of DeFi at the Solana Foundation, framed the rollout as a liquidity question for the network rather than a user-acquisition one.
"We have seen a proliferation of retail trading apps on Solana this year," Ali said. "World is the next in line, bringing an entirely new asset class to Solana and keeping 100% of liquidity onchain."
That claim is testable. Because orders route to Solana liquidity providers instead of an off-chain order book controlled by World, capital committed to its markets stays on the network — but only to the extent the markets actually trade. A market that never fills holds no liquidity, and World has published no turnover data for the 150,000 contracts it has created.
Chainlink's resolution rails carry the recurring revenue question
Chainlink's role extends beyond this launch. In May, Myriad integrated Chainlink Data Streams and the Runtime Environment to automate the creation, resolution, and settlement of markets tied to BTC, ETH, BNB, and SOL, and said it planned to extend the service to stocks, commodities, and other real-world assets. World adds a consumer-scale distribution channel to the same infrastructure, where thousands of markets resolving on Chainlink data create recurring demand for oracle services.
The financial contribution remains unquantified. Chainlink has not stated revenue scale from the World integration, and World has not published fees, leaving the adoption channel concrete but its economics undisclosed.
US access is the gate on the waitlist
Listing NFL games and the 2026 midterms ties World directly to U.S. events, but listing an American event does not establish that users in every U.S. state can trade it. Prediction market access in the country remains subject to a dispute over federal derivatives oversight and state gambling laws. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulates designated contract markets, while several state authorities contend that sports and election contracts fall under their own gaming rules.
In September, conflicting Kalshi rulings produced different outcomes in federal appellate courts. The Third Circuit allowed an injunction protecting Kalshi from New Jersey enforcement to remain in place, while the Ninth Circuit permitted Nevada regulators to enforce state gaming requirements as litigation continued. New Jersey has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether the Commodity Exchange Act prevents states from applying sports-gambling laws to event contracts listed by a CFTC-regulated exchange. The petition does not mean the court has agreed to hear the dispute.
World has not said it operates a CFTC-registered exchange, nor identified which of its contracts are accessible to U.S. residents. Phantom states that prediction markets are offered only in jurisdictions where they are supported, and the launch announcement provided no country-by-country availability list. Access remains available through world.xyz and inside Phantom on iOS, Android, and desktop, with users still needing enough funds to cover Solana network fees when opening or closing positions.
World's roadmap adds equity up-and-down contracts next, followed by commodity markets covering gold, silver, oil, natural gas, and computing capacity, then weather contracts tied to major cities. Each addition widens the resolution surface Chainlink must cover and the jurisdictional questions World must answer. The number to watch is not the waitlist or the market count, but whether the platform publishes turnover that shows the 1 million users are trading rather than registering.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
