World, the prediction market platform built on Solana, has opened its standalone website to more than 1 million waitlisted users — after over 150,000 markets were already created through its integration inside the Phantom wallet.
By Jennifer Kim | September 10, 2026
The Hook: Prediction Markets Go Mainstream-Adjacent
In a September 9 announcement, World said world.xyz now gives its waitlist direct access to trading platforms on everything from football to the Federal Reserve. The service had been operating inside the popular Phantom crypto wallet since July, with users opening positions since June 1, 2026. The standalone launch means users no longer need the wallet app to participate — they can bet directly through the website.
Prediction markets let you bet real money on real-world outcomes — think of them as stock markets for questions like “will the Fed hike rates?” or “will the Chiefs win?” Their surge in popularity has made them one of crypto’s hottest sectors, and World is now betting that a million-person waitlist can convert into a serious challenger.
What You Can Actually Trade
- Sports — every NFL regular-season game, seven soccer leagues and Formula 1.
- Politics and economics — contracts tied to the 2026 US midterm elections and the Federal Reserve’s upcoming policy decision.
- Crypto, finance and culture — over 150,000 markets have been created across these categories, according to World.
- Coming soon — equity, commodity and weather markets are planned after the initial launch.
Each market offers “yes” and “no” contracts priced between 0 and 1 USD. The price reflects the market’s collective estimate of the odds; when the event resolves, the winning contract pays out at 1 USD and the loser expires worthless. Trades settle in CASH, the dollar-backed stablecoin used inside Phantom.
How It Works: No Brokerage Account, No Middleman
Unlike a conventional bookmaker or centralized exchange, World operates as a non-custodial protocol — it never holds customer funds. Orders are routed to liquidity providers operating directly on Solana. Users do not open a brokerage account or register with an exchange; they just need a wallet with enough funds to cover Solana’s famously low network fees.
Resolution — deciding who won each market — is automated through Chainlink Data Streams and the Chainlink Runtime Environment. Once a game ends or an official decision is announced, the system reads the result from defined data sources and settles contracts automatically. Chainlink Labs Chief Business Officer Johann Eid linked World’s million-plus waitlist to growing demand for prediction markets on Solana, saying Chainlink provides the data infrastructure needed to resolve markets quickly. That design eliminates the human resolution panels and dispute waiting periods used by older platforms.
Solana Foundation Head of DeFi Ramzy Ali described the launch as “introducing a new asset class to Solana and keeping 100% of the liquidity onchain” — capital that stays inside the Solana ecosystem rather than flowing through an off-chain order book controlled by the platform.
The Core Conflict: Big Waitlist, Unproven Numbers
Here is the caveat every investor should hold onto: World has not disclosed first-day trading volume, open interest or its fee structure. Without those figures, its true traction cannot be compared with established rivals. The 150,000-market count measures contracts launched, not money traded or active users.
The bar is high. As crypto.news reported in August, prediction market volume across Kalshi, Polymarket and Polymarket US reached a record 50.59 billion USD in July — with Kalshi alone accounting for 37.7 billion USD and Polymarket’s platforms a combined 12.9 billion USD. Those are notional trading volumes, but they illustrate the scale World must chase. There is also a regulatory wrinkle: World’s inclusion of NFL games and midterm contracts gives it direct exposure to US rules, and while Phantom says prediction markets are offered only where supported, no country-by-country availability list was published.
The Verdict
World’s launch is a milestone for Solana’s ambitions beyond memecoins and DeFi — automated resolution, self-custody and million-user access are genuinely different from the incumbents. But a waitlist is not a customer base, and until World publishes real volume data, treat its challenger status as promising but unproven. If you participate, remember the golden rule of prediction markets: prices are probabilities, not promises — and Solana’s ecosystem token SOL, trading near 101 USD at the time of writing, tends to feel both the hype and the disappointment.
The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
been trading fed markets inside phantom since june, the standalone site is way smoother. 150k markets already created is wild
150k markets created inside phantom already and now the standalone site. the midterm markets are gonna be pure copium in november
the fed market is literally just the bond market with extra steps lol
extra steps and worse fills lol. at least the bond market doesnt freeze when the chain halts
NFL, midterms and rate decisions on chain. the prediction market space went from polymarket curiosity to infrastructure fast
@Yara wait till the sports leagues lawyers notice. thats the real cliffhanger, not the tech
1 million waitlist for what is basically polymarket with a wallet growth hack. the phantom integration was the smartest distribution move of the year
phantom integration was patient zero for the userbase, the site is just graduation. the week two retention curve decides if any of this matters
Betting on Fed decisions while the Fed decision moves the value of your collateral. Neat recursive trade.
the recursive part is the fun part tho. hedge the fed move and bet the fed move in the same account, degens will build a whole basis trade out of this
exactly the problem. your collateral devalues right when the fed market resolves against you. sol denominated fed bets are a hidden leverage trade
sol denominated fed bets are a leveraged basis trade with worse fills. someone blows up on it in september and writes the thread we all saw coming
exactly, and nobody sizes the collateral leg. your sol stack drops 12 percent on a hawkish print and the safe fed bet is underwater before resolution even hits
sized the collateral leg once and the sol drawdown swamped the edge on every fed market i tried. the basis crowd will learn it the expensive way
never framed it that way but youre right, a hawkish surprise sometimes pays you twice and sometimes torches both legs at once. collateral risk in the denom is doing way more work than people pricing these markets realize
Solana goes down on election night and every midterm bet freezes. Just something to think about before opening positions.
solana hasnt had a real outage stretch in a while but one election night halt and this whole app is done. 150k markets riding on that assumption
one bad election night and the 1M waitlist becomes the 1M refund queue. single chain dependency is the whole risk in one sentence
one halt and its every midterm market freezing at once, not just one app. single chain risk is the entire short thesis on this thing
1 million waitlist opened same week as polymarket drama. timing is everything i guess
NFL markets going on-chain right as the league eyes sports betting partnerships. The lawyers will arrive before week 8.
the players association already flagged sportsbook data deals this summer. week 8 feels generous, id put the first cease and desist at week 4
week 4 feels right. the leagues watched polymarket skirt the lawyers for years, a wallet native app with NFL markets is a much fatter target
One million waitlisted users sounds big until you remember most of them got there through the World app. Week one retention after the standalone launch is the real metric.
world.xyz opening NFL and fed markets to a million people the same month polymarket is stuck in drama, the timing could not be more deliberate
150k markets created inside phantom before world.xyz even opened. the demand was already there, the standalone site just stopped gatekeeping it