Underdog Taps Zerohash to Bring Crypto Deposits to 11 Million Users by Year-End

Zerohash Rails, Launch by Year-End

Underdog will let customers fund their prediction market accounts with cryptocurrency and stablecoins, the company announced on Thursday, October 22, at the NEXTPredict NYC Summit. Prediction markets let users take positions on real-world outcomes, and until now funding those positions has generally meant card processors or bank wires that stop at banking hours. The new feature runs on infrastructure from Zerohash, a provider whose settlement rails sit in the PayFi space, where stablecoins move money instantly at any hour. It is slated to go live before the end of the year. Eligible users will deposit directly through the Underdog app with near-instant transfers, including evenings and weekends, and they will not need to manage wallet addresses or select a blockchain network. Unlike transfers bound to banking calendars, the deposit flow operates outside typical crypto trading hours. Underdog has not specified which cryptocurrencies or stablecoins will be supported, and the asset list was still unconfirmed at the time of writing. Fees for the new deposit method were not disclosed either. Underdog payments head Arthik Adla said stablecoins and on-chain assets unlock “greater choice and speed,” while Zerohash revenue chief Adam Tesan pointed to moving money globally around the clock. The company has an audience to sell this to: IG Group’s October 2026 acquisition presentation found that 46% of Underdog customers had traded crypto before and 42% said they preferred funding Underdog wallets with crypto, against 58% who had traded individual stocks. Zerohash is not new to the category either. In July 2026 it rolled out crypto and stablecoin deposits for ProphetX, and the Underdog integration extends those rails to a second platform. Underdog itself moved onto its own prediction market exchange on July 18, 2026, after previously routing sports contracts through Crypto.com’s CFTC-approved derivatives arm. Caveats apply: Zerohash’s disclosures note some services may be unavailable in New York, and crypto and stablecoin balances in its accounts carry no FDIC or SIPC protection.

A $1.1 Billion Deal, a Fast-Growing Market

The funding push arrives while Underdog sits inside an acquisition. IG Group agreed on July 30, 2026, to buy the company at an enterprise value of $1.1 billion, including roughly $200 million in earnout, with closing expected in late 2026 or early 2027. IG cited the overlap between sports fans and retail traders as one driver of the deal. Underdog, founded in 2020, counts more than 11 million registered accounts. Its public dashboard reports $7.88 billion in cumulative notional volume across 49.86 million trades through October 21, 2026, with $70.72 million traded on October 20 alone; those are company-reported figures. The sector around it has expanded faster, both in traded value and in active wallets. TRM Labs data puts monthly prediction market volume at roughly $1.2 billion in early 2025, above $20 billion by January 2026, with more than 800,000 unique wallets active each month. An Artemis snapshot shows roughly $400 billion traded across prediction markets over the past year, with sports contracts taking 42.7% of that activity and crypto contracts 14.6%. Underdog’s own share is growing quickly from a smaller base: aggregate tracking data shows $1.4 billion in trading volume over the 30 days ending October 21, a 133% increase on the previous period, against Kalshi’s $81.5 billion and Polymarket’s combined $17.2 billion across its US and international platforms. Those three operators now dominate a category that barely registered two years ago. Small-ticket crypto activity, the profile the new rails target, is climbing too. Chainalysis reports that transfers under $100 into crypto services rose 78.4% between July 2025 and June 2026, though that figure spans crypto broadly rather than prediction market deposits.

The CFTC’s October 9 Swaps Proposal

The regulatory footing of these event contracts is still moving. On October 9, 2026, the CFTC proposal would explicitly bring event contracts inside the definition of swaps, folding prediction market positions into a regime built for derivatives and other forms of contract trading in crypto. Our read is straightforward. Growth of 133% in 30 days shows why deposit friction matters, and funding rails of this kind are becoming table stakes for operators chasing customers who already hold crypto. But the feature has yet to launch, the supported assets are undisclosed, and nothing in the announcement demonstrates that it will attract new crypto users, lift token demand, or move prices.