Kalshi’s perps product will allow U.S. traders to go long or short on Bitcoin and other assets without expiration dates, using a funding-rate mechanism to anchor contract prices to spot. This launches under direct CFTC approval as a federally regulated derivatives exchange—a meaningful regulatory advantage that sets Kalshi apart from the offshore crypto derivatives market.

Polymarket is racing to launch its own version 24 hours earlier on April 26 to capture first-mover branding. The platform’s perps will run through its CFTC-licensed subsidiary following last year’s QCEX acquisition. See live Bitcoin price data to understand the spot market context for Monday’s launch pricing.

The soldier was allegedly trading on “Venezuela/Maduro Capture” contracts using classified military intelligence—reportedly purchasing over $33,000 in Yes shares just hours before tactical movements were made. Because the timing can be cross-referenced against mission logs and the intelligence chain is documented, this is a cleaner evidentiary case than anything the DOJ has built against prediction market traders to date.

Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) used the arrest to double down on his push for a total ban on contracts tied to war, assassination, and terrorism, warning of “more crimes” if Congress doesn’t act immediately to bar public officials from these platforms. This is exactly the fact pattern the Schiff-Curtis BETS OFF Act needed. The Federal Clarity Act (the industry’s preferred legislation) now faces a real political headwind.

The smart money is heavily backing Boston (−7.5) tonight. Despite Philadelphia’s home-court advantage, traders are citing a specific historical pattern: since 2018, the Celtics are 11–1 against the spread when coming off a loss as road favorites. At 11–1, that’s a 92% historical hit rate on a specific situational setup—exactly the kind of structural edge that prediction markets surface faster than traditional sportsbooks. Live NBA Playoffs brackets show the series stakes clearly.

All eyes are on VJ Edgecombe tonight. Prediction markets have set his “Points + Assists” line at 19.5, with heavy “Over” volume after he dismantled the Celtics’ backcourt in Game 2. This is one of the cleanest rookie-specific prop contracts on the board and a test case for whether Edgecombe adjusts or doubles down against a prepared Boston defense.

The over/under is set at 205.5, but prediction markets are flagging a 60% “Over” trend for playoff totals set this low. The market logic: bookmakers historically shade low-total playoff lines expecting grind-it-out games, but modern NBA pace tends to produce more scoring than the flat number suggests. This is the textbook “fade the line” setup if you believe the 60% historical trend holds.

Crypto.com’s stated 40x weekly growth in its prediction markets business over the six months preceding the February OG spinout is the most aggressive publicly disclosed growth rate in the category. That figure came from the launch press release and was repeated by CEO Kris Marszalek—it hasn’t been independently validated by a third-party panel, but it’s the signal that triggered the standalone product. If OG is now running its own independent growth curve post-spinout, it would be the fastest-emerging challenger on this list. Independent download and DAU data for OG is not yet visible in public Sensor Tower or Similarweb previews.

Polymarket’s global web rank has climbed from 940 to 836 over the past three months. February traffic was 32.5M visits (up 0.79% MoM), March jumped to 45.3M as the Iran war markets spiked. Direct traffic is 74.17% of desktop visits—a sign of strong brand-driven return traffic, not paid acquisition. Top audience overlap: CoinMarketCap, Kalshi, TradingView, Claude.ai. U.S., India, and Israel are the top three visitor countries.

Kalshi jumped from 7.1M visits in November 2024 to 13M in March 2026—an 83% increase that roughly matches the platform’s trajectory since the 2024 election. Direct traffic is 66.06% of desktop visits. Top keywords driving organic traffic include “kalshi,” “kalshi texas senate,” “polymarket” (interesting cross-search), and “kalshi bracket challenge.” Audience overlap: polymarket.com, espn.com, 270towin.com, DraftKings sportsbook, FanDuel sportsbook.

Citizens JMP Securities reported Kalshi accumulated approximately 1 million app downloads during the NFL playoffs alone—their highest 2-week download market share in platform history. Across the full NFL season, the estimate is roughly 4.4 million downloads, putting Kalshi in the same rough band as FanDuel and ahead of DraftKings in that window. This is the single best third-party download validation currently available for any prediction market platform.

Per Sensor Tower, Kalshi saw an 18% MAU increase in Q1 2026 while traditional sportsbook operators saw declines. This is the first quarter where the displacement effect of prediction markets on sportsbook revenue has been quantified at the panel level. Nearly 30% of Kalshi MAUs also used Robinhood in the same month in 2025—a strong audience overlap that has since deepened through the formal Robinhood-Kalshi brokerage partnership. This cross-audience dynamic is a meaningful moat for both platforms.

From Robinhood’s Q4 2025 investor letter: 8.5 billion event contracts in Q4 alone, 12B+ across the full year, 1M+ customers. Q3 2025 event contracts “more than doubled sequentially” to 2.3B. The Robinhood-Susquehanna MIAXdx acquisition (closing Q1 2026) positions Robinhood to capture this volume on its own exchange rather than routing through Kalshi, which would be the most significant structural shift in the category if it plays out as planned.

Similarweb public page traffic estimates; app store ratings, review counts, version updates; Polymarket Analytics and Kalshi API public market data; Sensor Tower public blog posts and State of Mobile reports; company press releases; SEC filings and investor letters for public companies (HOOD, FLUT, DKNG, CME, COIN); news coverage citing Sensor Tower, Apptopia, or Similarweb data; Google Trends search interest; Reddit subreddit growth.

Precise monthly downloads by app by country; DAU/MAU time series and retention curves for any individual app; cross-app audience overlap at granular level; ad spend and creative intelligence (Pathmatics); in-app purchase revenue for specific SKUs; historical traffic data beyond the current Similarweb preview window. For these, the free Sensor Tower pop-up at app.sensortower.com gives a last-month snapshot that we can screenshot into the briefing manually.

Run this report every Monday covering the prior week. Refresh the leaderboard, challenger tracker, and Sensor Tower/Similarweb signals automatically. Every 2–4 weeks, supplement with a Sensor Tower free-preview screenshot of the 4–5 most-watched apps for a fresh download snapshot. Quarterly, pull public company earnings data when HOOD, FLUT, DKNG, and COIN report to refresh revenue and contract-count numbers.