Polymarket Bitcoin deposits can now move through Lightning after Spark said the prediction market added support for faster BTC▲$62,630.00 funding.
Layer-2 Bitcoin network Spark said in an X post on Tuesday, July 7, that Polymarket now supports Bitcoin deposits over the Lightning Network, letting users top up balances on the prediction market platform faster.
According to Spark’s documentation, the network supports real BTC rather than wrapped Bitcoin, meaning users aren’t depositing a separate token that merely tracks Bitcoin’s price.
Spark says it also supports Bitcoin mainnet deposits and withdrawals, along with Lightning payments, which is the part Polymarket is now using for faster BTC funding.
However, the milestone doesn’t imply that Polymarket markets themselves are now using BTC. The trading layer itself operates in pUSD, the native token of Polymarket which is one-to-one pegged to USDC▲$0.9999 issued by Circle in the Polygon blockchain.
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How Polymarket Bitcoin Support Works
The missing piece is Polymarket’s bridge system. According to the Polymarket documentation, the bridge is able to generate deposit addresses for various blockchains, including BTC address associated with a user’s Polymarket wallet.
So when a user sends BTC through Lightning Network, the balance on Polymarket still appears to need conversion into pUSD before it can be used to buy or sell market shares.
Polymarket doesn’t publicly spell out the exact conversion route for the new Spark-powered Lightning Network deposits, including whether Spark, Polymarket’s bridge or another liquidity provider handles the BTC-to-pUSD leg.
Therefore, the probable conversion chain will look like BTC in, pUSD out. In other words, a user transfers Bitcoin via Lightning Network powered by Spark, and the bridge in Polymarket converts his funds to pUSD.
As of press time, Polymarket made no public announcements on the matter.