WTI Crude is falling sharply as the Hormuz risk premium deflates, currently trading at $88.85 (–0.91%). Brent is similarly down near $97. This is a direct compression of the war premium that had pushed WTI toward $105+ over the past week. The speed of the move is consistent with the market having been near-fully positioned for escalation—the extension caught the consensus wrong-footed.

Spot gold has dropped to $4,681, giving back the war-hedge premium accumulated earlier this week. The ceasefire settlement triggered a classic “volatility crush”—those holding short-dated options on gold saw implied volatility collapse sharply on resolution. The $5,000 target that institutional traders were watching as the next milestone has been pushed further out on the timeline.

The suit alleges that “event contracts” are quintessentially gambling and that both platforms failed to obtain NY State Gaming Commission licenses. Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal has already signaled a fight, doubling down on the “Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction” argument under the Commodity Exchange Act that has been successful in both the 3rd and 9th Circuits. The core legal tension—federal preemption vs. state gaming authority—is now playing out on two simultaneous tracks for the second time this year.

In a striking strategic response to the lawsuit environment, both Kalshi and Polymarket have announced plans to launch cryptocurrency perpetual contracts (perps) in the U.S., leveraging Kalshi’s recent margin trading approval from the CFTC. The move directly challenges Coinbase’s core derivatives business on federally-regulated ground—a calculated escalation that reframes the narrative from “prediction markets facing state bans” to “federally approved exchanges expanding into crypto derivatives.”

Following a “belly flop” performance in Game 1, the sharp consensus is backing a Cade Cunningham bounce-back through the passing market rather than the scoring line. The Over 9.5 Assists at $0.64 is pricing a 64% probability of a high-assist performance—a bet on Cunningham returning to his primary ball-handling role as the Pistons adjust their Game 2 scheme. This is the exact type of intra-series prop adjustment that separates platforms with deep player prop infrastructure from those offering only moneylines. Compare prop depth across platforms in our best prediction market apps reviews.

Oklahoma City remains the mathematical title favorite at approximately 40%, followed by the Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics. The Pistons—despite being 9.5-point home favorites tonight—remain a long-shot on the championship board. Track live futures odds cross-platform on Polymarket and Kalshi for any pricing gaps between platforms as the first round progresses.

Equity futures are pointing significantly higher (+0.56%) as traders unwind the geopolitical risk premium that had compressed valuations through last week. The VIX is falling nearly 2% to 20.60—a classic “volatility crush” signature when a well-telegraphed binary risk resolves constructively. The speed and magnitude of the move confirm that the market had been heavily positioned for the escalation scenario The General was betting on.

Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh’s confirmation odds have slipped to 34% following his “Inflation is a choice” testimony—language that drew sharp pushback from Senate moderates. With Jerome Powell’s term ending May 15, the confirmation timeline is now compressed. A Warsh failure would directly reprice the Federal Clarity Act contract and the broader “pro-prediction-market Fed Chair” thesis that has been a significant tailwind for industry valuation. Watch this contract closely on Polymarket through the week.

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.