Pred Opens to the Public After Generating $5 Million in Beta Volume Ahead of FIFA World Cup 2026

Sports prediction markets have emerged as one of crypto's fastest-growing sectors over the past two years.

Platforms like Polymarket have introduced millions of users to event-based trading, proving that people are willing to speculate on everything from elections and economic data to geopolitical events. But despite that growth, one of the world's largest betting categories remains largely underserved by crypto-native platforms: live sports.

The challenge is simple. Sports moves fast.

A goal, penalty, red card, or momentum shift can completely change the outcome of a match within seconds. Yet many prediction platforms still rely on market structures that were never designed for real-time sporting events.

Pred believes sports deserves its own trading infrastructure.

The Base-powered sports trading exchange opened public access this week after processing nearly $5 million in notional volume during a private beta, positioning itself for what could become one of the biggest sporting events in history: the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

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$5 Million in Volume and 86% Retention

During an eight-week private beta, more than 300 invited users executed over 100,000 trades across soccer markets.

The platform recorded nearly $5 million in trading volume while retaining 86% of traders week over week. According to the company, 83% of users also returned to make additional deposits, suggesting strong engagement among early participants.

Those numbers arrive as sports-related prediction markets continue to gain traction across crypto, with traders increasingly looking beyond politics and macroeconomic events toward markets that offer constant activity and frequent settlement opportunities.

For Pred, the beta was less about volume and more about validating whether traders wanted a dedicated sports-first experience.

Why Sports Trading Is Different

Most prediction platforms today are designed as general-purpose marketplaces.

Users can trade on elections, interest rates, economic indicators, weather events, and occasionally sporting outcomes. But live sports presents a unique set of challenges.

Markets need to update continuously, pricing must adjust in real time, and traders often expect outcomes to settle quickly after a match or event concludes.

Pred was built specifically around those requirements.

The platform operates a peer-to-peer exchange where users take positions directly against one another through an on-chain order book. Trades settle in roughly 200 milliseconds, while markets resolve in approximately three minutes.

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All positions are denominated in USDC and settled on-chain.

According to CEO and Co-Founder Amit Mahensaria, the goal was to build the kind of sports trading venue that experienced bettors have long wanted but rarely found.

"I spent 22 years trading sports, watching exploitative pricing of sportsbooks and limits of sharp traders cut to nothing the moment they started winning," Mahensaria said.

"Pred is the exchange I wanted as a trader. The UX and speed of a sportsbook, the pricing and transparency of an on-chain exchange."

Betting on the World Cup

The timing of Pred's public launch is no coincidence.

The FIFA World Cup remains the most-watched sporting event on the planet, attracting billions of viewers and generating enormous betting activity across global markets.

Rather than simply offering match winners and final score predictions, Pred is building liquidity around markets designed specifically for live gameplay.

These include:

• 15-minute markets that settle during active play

• 1UP and 2UP markets that resolve once a goal differential is reached

• Live moneyline markets that continuously update throughout a match

During beta testing, individual soccer matches often supported multiple simultaneous markets, creating significantly more trading opportunities than traditional prediction platforms.

The company believes that market variety will be critical as sports prediction markets continue to mature.

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A Verticalized Future for Prediction Markets

One of the more interesting questions emerging across crypto prediction markets is whether large horizontal platforms will dominate every category or whether specialized exchanges will emerge around individual verticals.

Pred is clearly betting on the latter.

While general-purpose prediction platforms continue expanding into sports, the company argues that sports is large enough to justify dedicated infrastructure optimized for traders, pricing efficiency, and live-event execution.

That thesis attracted backing from Accel and Coinbase Ventures, both of which have supported the company's development.

Pred's public launch introduces Version 2 of the platform, rebuilt following more than 300 user interviews and feedback sessions conducted during the beta period.

With the World Cup now underway and sports prediction markets attracting increasing attention across crypto, the company is positioning itself at the intersection of one of the industry's fastest-growing sectors and one of the world's largest entertainment markets.

Whether sports trading ultimately becomes its own category within crypto remains to be seen.

But after nearly $5 million in beta volume and more than 100,000 trades, Pred is betting that dedicated sports exchanges will have a major role to play.