Polymarket now accepts Bitcoin deposits

Polymarket now accepts Bitcoin deposits.

That’s a great step forward. Bitcoiners, in my opinion, have been unfairly left out of the largest prediction market for too long.

But the way these deposits work raises some questions:

• First, users aren’t actually depositing Bitcoin tokenized on Polygon (as one might expect), but USDC. The deposit widget doesn’t make it clear that a conversion is happening — and no exchange rate is shown.
• Second, there’s a small disclaimer: “Terms apply.” The terms say the service “connects you to a series of smart contracts that enable you to sell your tokens for your specified target token.” But when you deposit Bitcoin, you’re asked to send it to a regular private-key address, not to a script (the closest thing to a smart contract in Bitcoin). So there’s no real smart contract involved, despite the terms.

In short, Polymarket may have launched Bitcoin deposits — but the implementation feels unfinished.

For Bitcoiners, there’s still a safer and simpler way to fund your Polymarket account:

• swap BTC for USDC on Polygon at rabbit.io (straightforward and transparent — no fake “smart contracts”),
• then send USDC to Polymarket, where they’re accepted natively, with no hidden conversions or surprise rates.