World launched on July 1 as an onchain prediction market on Solana (SOL), live in Phantom Wallet and using Chainlink oracles to automatically settle trades in the CASH stablecoin.

Its debut adds a Solana-native challenger to a sector Polymarket and Kalshi already lead, where volumes have hit records.

How World Works Inside Phantom

World operates as a non-custodial protocol rather than a traditional exchange. It routes orders to liquidity providers on Solana and does not hold user funds or run the markets itself. Traders keep positions in their own wallets as tokens until they choose to cash out.

Settlement runs through Chainlink Data Streams and its runtime environment, which feed prices and resolve outcomes with limited human involvement. Winning positions redeem automatically in CASH, a Solana stablecoin.

At launch, World lists short-duration Bitcoin (BTC) up-or-down contracts and markets on the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The debut lands as Solana runs hot.

Solana’s SOL token rose more than 5% on the day and about 16% over the week, according to BeInCrypto data.

The team plans to add sports, politics, and macro markets through July.

World Replaces Kalshi in the Wallet

The launch is the public reveal of infrastructure that has quietly run for weeks. Phantom offered Kalshi-powered markets through a DFlow integration from December 2025. It then switched to World for all positions opened on or after June 1.

Under the old setup, traders redeemed winning positions themselves, whereas World settles them automatically once an event ends.

That switch matters because Phantom reaches roughly 20 million users, giving World immediate distribution without a separate app. Kalshi, meanwhile, remains a formidable rival and is reportedly weighing a $40 billion valuation.

Before the reveal, the project ran a stealth campaign built around a glowing globe and the tagline “Trade Everything.” It even told followers there was “no product.”

“Prediction markets are one of the most powerful applications you can build on a high-performance blockchain. World is designed to show what Solana makes possible: real-time markets, onchain settlement, and a user experience that meets people where they are,” Pedro Miranda, Head of Consumer at the Solana Foundation, said in the launch announcement.

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Can World take on Polymarket and Kalshi?

The incumbents carry moats World has not built. Polymarket proved the model in 2024, when more than $3 billion traded on its US presidential market. It has since expanded onto Solana through a February integration with Jupiter, contesting the same turf World now claims.

Their regulatory paths diverge sharply. Kalshi is a US-regulated exchange that beat the CFTC in court in 2024 to list election contracts. Polymarket took the opposite route, paying a $1.4 million CFTC penalty in 2022 that forced it offshore for years.

World sidesteps both, running as a permissionless onchain protocol with no license and no gatekeeper.

That freedom cuts two ways. The non-custodial model removes intermediaries, but it also forgoes the oversight and protections that anchor a regulated venue like Kalshi.

World has not published volume or liquidity figures, so its trading power stays unproven. Prediction markets reward deep books, which produce tighter spreads and steadier pricing. Distribution can pull in users fast, but that kind of depth takes time to build.

Sector momentum still helps, with prediction market open interest hitting a record $1.48 billion in June.

An unaffiliated memecoin using the World name sparked speculation on Pump.fun, though the team confirmed there is no link to it.

World’s case rests on distribution and instant onchain settlement, not proven scale. The World Cup becomes the first real test of whether embedded access inside Phantom turns into lasting liquidity.

Source: BeInCrypto