Polymarket Cuts Jobs as Kalshi Leads Monthly Trading Volume

Polymarket confirmed a company-wide reduction in force on Thursday, cutting jobs and ending contractor agreements as pressure mounted on founder Shayne Coplan. The prediction market platform did not disclose how many people were affected. Bloomberg reported the action on Thursday and said the cuts followed investor pressure on Coplan to bring more discipline to the business. The same report said Polymarket now trails Kalshi in monthly trading volume, according to DeFiLlama data.

Polymarket described the changes this way: “a lot of new hires, changes in personnel and letting some people go.” It also confirmed that an email circulating on X, which described a “company-wide reduction in force,” was authentic.

More than half of those affected were contractors. No total headcount, geographic breakdown, job-function split or severance terms appeared in the report. Confirmation ends the rumor question. It does not resolve the scale.

What drove the workforce reduction?

The cuts followed investor pressure on Coplan, according to Bloomberg. Investors urged the founder to bring more discipline to the business. The report did not name those investors or quantify expected savings from ending contractor agreements and reducing staff. That makes the timing clear without revealing the full financial logic behind the decision.

The reference to new hires points to a recent expansion. The contractor majority shows that outside labor made up the larger part of the adjustment. The combination points to a pullback on a flexible layer of Polymarket’s operating model. It does not mean core trading operations have changed; no such change was reported.

How far has Kalshi moved ahead?

Polymarket now trails Kalshi in monthly trading volume, according to DeFiLlama data. The source did not provide either platform’s absolute monthly volume, so it supports the relative ranking rather than a precise measure of the gap.

Both firms are competing to draw more users to prediction markets. Polymarket lets users bet on elections, sports and other events. In these markets, traders buy and sell contracts based on the odds of real-world outcomes. Monthly volume therefore offers a visible measure of trading activity, though it does not reveal user counts, revenue or contract-level economics.

The competitive gap adds urgency to Polymarket’s restructuring. The report did not establish, however, that the volume shift caused the layoffs or that reversing it is a stated goal.

Who is leading the reset?

Polymarket named former Amazon finance chief Warren Jenson as its first chief financial officer in September. The appointment puts a senior finance executive in place while the company cuts staff, ends contractor agreements and competes with a rival that now leads monthly volume.

In October, the reported dismissal of marketing chief Matthew Modabber followed an internal probe into alleged misconduct. The sequence around the leadership changes is clear. Their effect on the cuts is not. Bloomberg did not say whether either move triggered the workforce reduction. Polymarket did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.

What does this change for traders?

For traders, the immediate change is organizational. The source did not report any change to market access, contract terms, trading rules or fees. It also did not identify which event markets or business functions lost staff. Traders therefore have no disclosed basis to expect a product-level change.

Operationally, Polymarket is reducing contractor commitments while adding its first chief financial officer. Expense control and financial oversight now sit in the same period. The business test is whether that discipline can coexist with user growth. Kalshi is ahead in monthly trading volume, and both firms are trying to add users.

Without a headcount or cost-savings figure, traders and investors cannot quantify the trade-off. Polymarket now faces a narrower resource base while competing on volume with the rival that moved ahead. The next market-structure test is whether Polymarket can close its monthly-volume gap with Kalshi after the reduction; no deadline or reorganization timetable was disclosed.