Short-Duration Crypto Contracts: How 5- and 15-Minute Bets Took Off

Short-duration crypto contracts, binary bets on whether bitcoin or another coin will be higher in five minutes, 15 minutes or an hour, became the largest driver of crypto volume on prediction markets in 2026. Kalshi's crypto volume rose from $340.2 million in January to $6.1 billion in July, according to Pew Research Center figures based on The Block data, and by March these short windows made up more than half of crypto trading on Kalshi and Polymarket combined, crypto.news reported. The growth also drew academic evidence of settlement manipulation in Polymarket's five-minute bitcoin contract.

What the market is pricing

These contracts reset every few minutes, so there is no standing price to report. The table tracks volume instead.

Figure	Value	Source	Date
Kalshi crypto volume, January 2026	$340.2 million	Pew Research Center (The Block data)	Sep 23, 2026
Kalshi crypto volume, July 2026	$6,101.1 million	Pew Research Center (The Block data)	Sep 23, 2026
Polymarket crypto volume, January 2026	$1,819.5 million	Pew Research Center (The Block data)	Sep 23, 2026
Polymarket crypto volume, July 2026	$1,154.1 million	Pew Research Center (The Block data)	Sep 23, 2026
Kalshi daily crypto volume, Jan 1 vs Jul 15, 2026	about $5 million vs $217.98 million	Cryptopolitan via Crypto News (Artemis data)	Jul 17, 2026
Short-duration share of crypto trading, Kalshi and Polymarket	more than half, about $70 million a day	crypto.news (citing the Financial Times)	Mar 13, 2026
Record weekly crypto volume, Kalshi and Polymarket	$2.7 billion (mid-October)	Crypto Briefing	Oct 24, 2026
Polymarket US 15-minute bitcoin, first full week	about $92 million to $101 million	Crypto Briefing	Oct 24, 2026
Crypto share of prediction-market volume, 24 hours	22.6% ($232 million of $1,024 million)	DeFi Rate	Nov 10, 2026
Kalshi crypto volume, Oct 12 to Nov 10, 2026	$5.4 billion, up 16% on prior 30 days	DeFi Rate	Nov 10, 2026

Pew and DeFi Rate both count each contract at its $1 face value (notional volume).

Where does the 44x figure come from?

Casino.org reported on July 17, 2026, citing Cointelegraph, that crypto turnover on prediction markets rose 44x in seven months, to about $218 million a day in mid-July from $5 million a day in January. The same day, a Cryptopolitan report republished by Crypto News gave the source as Artemis data and the scope as one venue: Kalshi's crypto contracts traded $217.98 million on Wednesday, July 15, against about $5 million on January 1, a rise of roughly 44x. Cryptopolitan also put Kalshi's share of crypto prediction volume at about 84%.

The two reports describe the same numbers with different scope. We could not find the Cointelegraph article Casino.org cites, so we treat the figure as Kalshi-only.

Our read: the multiple compares a record day with New Year's Day, which flatters it. Monthly data gives a steadier picture. Using Pew's figures, Kalshi's crypto volume rose about 18x from January to July. Polymarket's fell about 37% over the same months. Combined, the two venues' crypto volume rose from about $2.16 billion to $7.26 billion, about 3.4x. Kalshi's share went from about 16% of the pair's crypto volume in January to about 84% in July, which matches Cryptopolitan's figure.

Who offers short-duration crypto contracts?

• Polymarket lists five-minute, 15-minute and four-hour up/down contracts on bitcoin and several other coins, according to the Stanford and SMU paper. Those three settle against a Chainlink oracle price; its hourly and daily contracts reference a single exchange's spot price. The paper dates the 15-minute bitcoin contract to October 9, 2025, the four-hour to October 15, 2025, and the five-minute to February 12, 2026, from the on-chain trade record. Polymarket added per-trade fees on 15-minute crypto contracts in January and moved to extend fees of up to 1.56% across its crypto markets, crypto.news reported in March.
• Kalshi listed only a 15-minute crypto up/down contract over the paper's sample period; its hourly and daily crypto series are price-range markets, the paper says. crypto.news dates Kalshi's short-term crypto contracts to December 2025. Per the Kalshi Help Center (page dated October 9, 2026), most crypto markets settle on a 60-second average of a CF Benchmarks index, and a 15-minute market compares the average in the minute before close with the average in the minute before open.
• Polymarket US, the venue's U.S. arm, traded about $92 million to $101 million of 15-minute bitcoin contracts in its first full week, Crypto Briefing reported on October 24, 2026.
• Coinbase is adding timed bitcoin, ether and solana markets, Casino.org reported on June 17, 2026.
• Limitless, a blockchain prediction market on Coinbase's Base network, offers five-minute bitcoin contracts and has filed to become a CFTC-regulated exchange, Casino.org reported on May 5, 2026. Its notional volume rose from $204.9 million in January to $1.66 billion in April, per Dune Analytics.

How big a share of crypto volume are they?

Estimates from three points in the year agree on direction. In March, crypto.news, citing the Financial Times, reported that short-duration markets made up more than half of crypto trading on Kalshi and Polymarket, with combined daily volume around $70 million. In June, Eilers & Krejcik Gaming analyst Brad Allen wrote that on Polymarket, five-minute, 15-minute and hourly bitcoin markets were "approaching half of all crypto Execution Volume," and called short-resolution bitcoin markets a "primary growth driver" at Kalshi, per Casino.org. In October, Crypto Briefing reported that Kalshi's bitcoin contracts generated more than $2 billion in a single week, with its 15-minute up/down contract the main driver, and that crypto had become the second most traded category on both venues, behind sports.

The retail profile shows up in a Bitget Wallet report produced with Polymarket and Dune Analytics, covered by FXStreet on April 29, 2026: bitcoin-related markets drew about 593,000 users and $5.42 billion in volume. The article's summary says $5.42 million, which conflicts with its body; we use the body figure.

How do they differ from perps and options?

A short-duration contract pays $1 if the coin closes the window above its opening price and $0 otherwise, as the Stanford and SMU paper describes Polymarket's version. CF Benchmarks describes crypto event contracts as "identical to digital options." The buyer's maximum loss is the price paid.

A perpetual future has no expiration date and uses a funding rate, "a periodic payment between long and short traders," to stay near spot, according to Crypto.com's explainer. It is traded on margin, so gains and losses are magnified and positions can be liquidated. A standard option gives the holder the right, without the obligation, to buy or sell at a strike price in exchange for an upfront premium, which is the most the buyer can lose.

The short-duration contract pays the same whether bitcoin finishes $1 or $1,000 above its open. Our read: that puts unusual weight on the exact settlement print, and the settlement print is what the main criticism targets. A person familiar with Kalshi's plans told the Financial Times that leveraged bets were not envisaged for its 15-minute crypto products, crypto.news reported in March.

What are the criticisms?

The most concrete criticism comes from a study. In a working paper dated June 30, 2026, David Dai and Ruizhe Jia of Stanford and Shihao Yu of Singapore Management University studied Polymarket's five-minute bitcoin contract from its February 12 launch through April 8, 2026. They found that Binance spot order flow in the final ten seconds before each close rose about 50% above its pre-launch level and then reversed after settlement. In cycles priced at 90% to 100% for one side just before the close, a push against the favorite flipped the result 34% of the time, against 1% with no push. They identified 821 wallets, about one in 300 of roughly 243,000 traders, that took $8.2 million in the pushed cycles, with 93% of the losses falling on retail. "Manipulation is largely absent in the fifteen-minute contracts," the abstract says. The authors note their identification rests on realized profits, not direct evidence of intent.

Coverage of the paper conflicts with it on two points. Cointelegraph reported on July 15 that Polymarket introduced the contracts in July 2024 and that the study estimated about $1.28 million moved from ordinary traders to manipulators. The June 30 version we read dates the launch to February 12, 2026 and gives the $8.2 million figure; we could not find $1.28 million in it.

Other criticism is about what the products are for. crypto.news reported that investor advocate Amanda Fischer argues prediction platforms have added to the speculation in an already speculative asset class by compressing time horizons to minutes, and that Amir Hajian of market maker Keyrock described growth in five- and 15-minute bitcoin options as "explosive" and said high-frequency firms trade alongside retail. CFTC chair Mike Selig has defended event contracts as tools for hedging and portfolio management, the same report said.

What would change the picture?

The paper's own remedy is contract design: longer windows, or settlement on a time-weighted price, which it says raises the cost of a manipulative push. Kalshi already settles most crypto markets on 60-second averages of a CF Benchmarks index. Pew's category series stops at July 2026 because Kalshi's category data for combo bets changed, so later months rely on providers such as DeFi Rate.