AI Agent + Prediction Markets: Polymarket Sparks New Crypto Narrative, Trading Data Hits Record High

As artificial intelligence rapidly penetrates from the pure “infrastructure layer” to the “application layer,” enabling AI to generate real-world economic actions has become one of the hottest narratives of 2026. On February 24, a post from leading decentralized prediction market platform Polymarket reignited the spark at the intersection of crypto and AI. Polymarket developer Suhail Kakar announced the launch of Polymarket CLI (Command Line Interface), which industry insiders interpret as “the fastest way for AI agents to access prediction markets.”

When AI decision-making capabilities combine with the liquidity of prediction markets, an endless game of “AI betting on the real world” begins. This time, trading data on Gate is witnessing this paradigm shift.

AI Agents: From “Spectating” to “Betting” a Key Leap

Traditional prediction markets require humans to manually place orders based on news, intuition, or data analysis. However, with the release of the Polymarket CLI tool, this is fundamentally changing. Built with Rust, the tool allows AI agents to query markets, access real-time data, and execute trades directly from the terminal.

This means AI is no longer just an advisor providing suggestions but now has the “electronic wallet” permissions to act as a “soldier.” Following this, projects like LuckyLobster quickly followed suit, launching an AI-native execution layer for Polymarket. In early testing over just three weeks, AI agents on the LuckyLobster platform generated over $10,704 in trading volume across 700 orders, with an astonishing win rate of 78.6%, briefly ranking high on the Polymarket Builder leaderboard.

This speed is unattainable for humans. Using Chainlink oracles, AI agents can gather data and make decisions in about 200 milliseconds, compared to 2.4 seconds for manual operations. In the high-stakes world of arbitrage, AI agents are becoming the “predators” of prediction markets.

Data Doesn’t Lie: Market Heat Surpasses $100 Million

The entry of AI agents has directly driven a boom in Polymarket’s fundamentals. As of the week of February 22, 2026, trading volume on Polymarket Builders reached an astonishing $125 million, marking the platform’s third consecutive week exceeding $100 million. Meanwhile, the number of weekly active trading addresses has exceeded 10,000 for the second week in a row.

This growth is not just a release of speculative sentiment but also a sign of infrastructure maturity. As more liquidity flows in, Polymarket is evolving from a niche event prediction tool into one of the largest on-chain traffic gateways in the crypto-native environment.

When AI Starts Betting: From Bitcoin Prices to Macro Events

Currently, AI agents are rapidly expanding their betting targets. As a market sentiment indicator, Bitcoin price prediction markets have always been a major traffic driver for Polymarket.

According to Gate market data and the latest integrated information from on-chain prediction markets, as of February 25, the battle over short-term Bitcoin trends remains fierce. In the “Bitcoin February Closing Price” prediction pool on Polymarket, despite recent pressure on spot prices, market funds continue to trade intensively around the core support level of $65,000. Although the probability of Bitcoin surpassing $100,000 this year has retreated due to macro factors, this divergence itself provides huge arbitrage opportunities for AI agents.

The advantage of AI agents lies in their lack of emotion, unaffected by “fear of missing out” or “panic selling.” They rely on algorithms and real-time data streams to identify mispricings in Polymarket’s shared order book. For example, when a political event or economic data release causes a brief irrational market fluctuation, AI agents can quickly arbitrage across platforms, narrowing spreads and profiting from the discrepancy.

Gate Perspective: Capturing the Wealth Effect of AI + Prediction Markets

For Gate users, the explosion of Polymarket is far from an isolated event. It signals that “AI agent finance” is becoming a reality. 2026 is viewed by many investment institutions as the “commercialization realization period” for AI industry. When large models extend beyond dialogue into directly managing on-chain assets via APIs, new asset classes and trading strategies will emerge.

Currently, underlying assets and governance tokens involved in the Polymarket ecosystem—such as various assets closely related to the Polygon ecosystem—are gaining more attention. Although Polymarket itself has not issued tokens, tooling projects around its ecosystem (like middleware providers such as LuckyLobster) are attracting capital.

Conclusion

Calling Polymarket “AI’s casino” might be an oversimplification. More accurately, it is becoming an “interface” for AI to interact with the real world.

Within this interface, AI tests its understanding of reality by betting on weather, sports, elections, and crypto prices, while humans provide liquidity to capture the Alpha generated by AI. As more developers deploy their trading agents using Polymarket CLI, we have reason to believe that the on-chain trading volume in 2026 will be reshaped by these tireless codes.

For investors seeking Alpha on Gate, closely monitoring AI agent holdings, learning how to use tools to capture prediction market capital flows, will likely be the most important skill in the coming year.