Recently, due to constant hints from Polymarket officials regarding POLY token-related content, various airdrop-farming communities have been analyzing the timing and scale of the POLY airdrop from different angles.
According to predict.fun data, the probability of the event "Polymarket will launch its official token before the end of this year" is currently 56%; there is even a 7% probability that "Polymarket will launch its official token before Q2 of this year."
Additionally, regarding market cap, the probability for the event "Polymarket's FDV exceeds $6 billion one day after listing" is currently 51%; there is a 34% probability for "Polymarket's FDV exceeds $10 billion one day after listing."
Timeline of Official Polymarket Token Hints
October 2025: Initial Hints and Official Confirmation of the POLY Token
Official signals surrounding the POLY token from Polymarket can be traced back to last October.
On October 8, 2025, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan posted on X, listing POLY alongside BTC, ETH, BNB, and SOL, sparking community speculation about a Polymarket token launch.
Although this was not an official token announcement, for the market, the founder personally writing $POLY was sensitive enough. Since then, community discussion about a Polymarket token launch has noticeably heated up.
The airdrop expectation was further brought into public discussion by official team members. On October 23, 2025, Polymarket Growth Lead William LeGate mentioned "prospective airdrop farmers" in a podcast or related discussion. While not a formal rule explanation, this essentially acknowledged the existence of user behavior and expectations around a Polymarket airdrop in the market.
The expectation for the POLY token was further solidified on October 24, 2025. Polymarket CMO Matthew Modabber explicitly stated in a podcast, "Polymarket will have a token, and it will have an airdrop." This statement became a key turning point for Polymarket's token expectation, shifting from community speculation to official confirmation.
Entering November, the focus of official discussion began to shift from whether there would be an airdrop to what kind of behavior would *not* qualify for an airdrop. On November 11, 2025, William LeGate, responding to Sybil farming, clearly stated, "I can confidently tell you these sybil-farmed accounts are not going to result in any airdrop allocations, they're just wasting their time."
April of This Year: Major Price Tracking Platforms Launch POLY Preview Pages
Entering April of this year, POLY token expectations have extended to major crypto price-tracking websites.
Currently, preview pages for Polymarket (POLY) have appeared on both CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. While these pages are not equivalent to the official token launch nor do they represent Polymarket announcing a TGE timeline, the fact that external platforms are reserving pages for $POLY further strengthens the community's expectation of a Polymarket token launch.
May of This Year: POLY Token Moves from Airdrop Expectation to Product Hints
Entering May, the discussion around the POLY token has moved further towards specific functions and airdrop qualifications.
On the evening of May 4th, Polymarket official team member Mustafa responded to questions about the POLY token in a community interaction. A user asked when they could stake POLY to reduce taker fees, or potentially future maker fees.
Mustafa's reply was: "Soon." The community quickly interpreted this official response as Polymarket preparing for the token launch.
On May 13th, clues surrounding the POLY token continued to increase.
Polymarket Product Lead Dustin Karp posted a photo of his workstation, saying he passed by Mustafa's desk. The photo appeared to show an internal page related to the POLY token airdrop. The community zoomed in and found an "Airdrop" tab visible, further heightening expectations for a POLY token airdrop.
Subsequently, Polymarket Growth Lead LeGate also responded to questions about official badges in community discussions.
LeGate replied that the blue badge represents Polymarket employees; the "Traders" badge is primarily for traders with cumulative profits reaching $100,000, or other high-volume users (in other tweets, he mentioned a trading volume exceeding $10 million and said if users are active on Polymarket, the profit and volume thresholds can be slightly adjusted), and notable community contributors; the "Builders" badge is for projects building and developing based on the Polymarket ecosystem.
Badges might not be the only criteria for receiving an airdrop. The community inquired whether content contributions on X would be rewarded with POLY tokens. LeGate replied that linking your X account to your Polymarket account is only one-third of the conditions.
In addition, users should probably also put their Polymarket profile link in their X bio, actively share their trades, profit records, and market views on X, and maintain interaction with the community.
Although this reply did not explicitly confirm whether "shitposting" ("zui lu") could genuinely earn an airdrop, various communities were relatively optimistic and actively posted Polymarket-related content on X to seek potential token airdrops.
Personal Strategy
For someone who has been deeply involved in prediction markets throughout the first half of this year, I am still leaning towards the belief that Polymarket will not launch its token before the World Cup.
The reason is simple. Polymarket's more important task right now may not be to launch a token immediately, but to first refine the trading experience and infrastructure. Whether it's the continuous optimization of V2 or even a chain migration, it's essentially to prepare for high-traffic, high-frequency trading scenarios like the World Cup.
For Polymarket, if the platform experience is unstable during the World Cup, launching a token in advance would hardly help truly onboard new users and trading volume.
Therefore, recent trading has primarily been focused on hedging, placing orders on predict.fun to farm points, and then hedging positions received on Polymarket. At the same time, participating in various events on Polymarket with profitability as the goal.
Additionally, I am also linking my personal X account information on Polymarket and posting Polymarket-related content on X, hoping that when the token is launched in the future, a portion of the airdrop will also be allocated to "shitposting users" ("zui lu users").
