The firms that quietly power global financial markets are now turning their attention to something that, until recently, most of Wall Street dismissed as glorified gambling. Wintermute, Jane Street, DRW, and IMC are all actively expanding into prediction markets, providing the liquidity infrastructure that transforms speculative event contracts into something resembling a real asset class.
The numbers behind the shift
Event contract trading has surpassed $60 billion in volume for 2026. Prediction market platforms were processing over $20 billion in monthly volume by early 2026. For context, Wintermute alone handles over $3.5 trillion in annual trading volume across various asset classes. The firm has now committed to providing two-sided liquidity on platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi.
Wintermute isn’t just dipping a toe in. It’s deploying its algorithmic market-making infrastructure, the same technology stack it uses for crypto and traditional markets, to price event contracts with the kind of tight spreads that attract serious capital.
Jane Street, DRW, and IMC are taking a similar approach, each building out dedicated trading desks specifically for prediction markets. Quantitative trading firms across the industry are actively hiring specialists to run these desks.
