Prediction Market KYC Requirements: What ID You Need on Each Platform

TL;DR

• Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated exchange, requires a legal name, date of birth, Social Security number, government-issued ID, and proof of address before you can fund an account.
• Polymarket's international platform, Limitless, Predict.Fun, and Opinion let you start trading by connecting a crypto wallet, no ID upload required for basic access.
• Polymarket US, the platform's separate CFTC-regulated US arm live in beta since November 2025, is the exception: it requires the same full identity verification as Kalshi.
• Wallet-based access isn't anonymous. Every trade settles on a public blockchain; what you skip is attaching your legal name to that wallet through the platform itself.

Ready to fund a prediction market account and dreading a driver's-license upload? On Kalshi, that step is mandatory. On Polymarket's international platform, Limitless, Predict.Fun, and Opinion, you can skip it and start trading with just a connected crypto wallet.

Kalshi requires full government ID verification and proof of address before you can fund an account. Polymarket's international platform, Limitless, Predict.Fun, and Opinion let you start trading with just a crypto wallet, no ID upload required for basic access. Polymarket does have one exception: its separate, CFTC-regulated Polymarket US arm requires the same verification Kalshi does. The difference comes down to one thing: regulatory status, not platform preference.

Why Do Some Platforms Require ID and Others Don't?

A CFTC-regulated exchange is a licensed financial institution. That status comes with legal obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act, the same anti-money-laundering framework that governs brokerages and banks.

Kalshi operates under that framework, which means identity verification isn't a design choice. It's a compliance requirement. You provide a legal name, date of birth, Social Security number, and a government-issued ID before you can deposit a dollar.

Polymarket's international platform, Limitless, Predict.Fun, and Opinion sit on the other side of that line. They're on-chain venues built around crypto wallets rather than bank accounts.

Connect a wallet, fund it with crypto, and you're trading. No SSN, no uploaded driver's license, no proof of address. That's not a loophole. It's the underlying architecture: a self-custodied wallet is the account, and there's no bank rail to attach a KYC check to in the first place.

Polymarket US is the one exception among the four. Launched in beta in November 2025 after Polymarket acquired the CFTC-licensed exchange QCX, it clears contracts the same way Kalshi does, so it carries the same identity-verification requirement: full name, date of birth, address, and a government ID photo match. It's a separate, smaller product from the main international platform, not a change to how that platform works.

This split matters more than most onboarding comparisons because it doesn't change when a platform redesigns its signup flow. A CFTC-regulated exchange will always require identity verification, by law. A wallet-based on-chain venue will always be closer to permissionless access. That's why this is worth comparing structurally rather than screenshot by screenshot.

How Do the Five Platforms Compare on KYC?

The pattern holds across every row: regulation drives verification, not platform preference. Kalshi's compliance obligations exist because it clears contracts through a CFTC-registered exchange, the same regulatory category that governs commodities and futures trading.

Polymarket US clears through that same regulatory category, which is why it's the one on-chain-adjacent product in this group that requires ID. The other three on-chain platforms, Limitless, Predict.Fun, and Opinion, along with Polymarket's international platform, don't clear through that system, so there's no equivalent legal trigger for ID collection at the account level.

Is Wallet-Only Access Actually Anonymous?

Connecting a wallet isn't the same as anonymity. Every trade on an on-chain platform settles on a public blockchain, visible to anyone who looks. What you don't hand over is a name attached to that wallet address, at least not through the platform itself.

Say you connect a wallet, buy a $0.40 Yes contract on a market, and sell it two days later at $0.55. That entire trade history is public and permanent on-chain. It's pseudonymous, not private.

Where this changes is at the edges of the platform, not the core trading experience. Moving crypto onto a wallet through a centralized exchange, Coinbase, for example, already required KYC at that exchange, before the funds ever touched Polymarket, Limitless, Predict.Fun, or Opinion.

Large-scale institutional access, or a fiat on-ramp built directly into a platform, can carry its own verification step, separate from the base wallet-connect flow. The KYC pressure doesn't disappear. It just moves to whichever part of the pipeline touches a bank.

Why Does This Matter for Cross-Platform Comparison?

At PredictionHero, we normalize odds and markets across Polymarket, Kalshi, Limitless, Predict.Fun, and Opinion so you can compare pricing on the same event without opening five tabs. Onboarding friction is part of that comparison.

A researcher who wants to check Kalshi's pricing on a Fed rate decision needs to clear identity verification first. A researcher checking the same event on Polymarket's international platform or Opinion needs a funded wallet and nothing else.

That gap shapes who actually trades where. Kalshi's ID requirement filters toward a US-based, bank-account-holding user base.

The wallet-only platforms draw a global, crypto-native audience that never touches a US bank rail. When you see consensus probability diverge between a CFTC-regulated exchange and an on-chain venue, part of that gap is a different population of traders with a different verification bar to entry, not just different information. Our Kalshi vs. Polymarket comparison covers where the two platforms diverge beyond KYC, on custody, fees, and dispute handling.

Sources

• Kalshi Help Center. "What Information Is Required to Verify My Kalshi Account?" help.kalshi.com
• Kalshi. "Customer Identification on Kalshi," Market Integrity Hub. kalshi.com
• FinCEN / CFTC. "Questions and Answers Regarding the Customer Identification Program Rule." fincen.gov
• CFTC. "Anti-Money Laundering." cftc.gov
• Polymarket US. "KYC Verification Flow," partner docs. docs.polymarket.us
• Limitless Exchange. Documentation. docs.limitless.exchange
• Opinion. "Connect With Web3 Wallet." docs.opinion.trade

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