Polymarket Announces CTF Exchange V2 in Major Protocol Upgrade

The upgrade comes as Polymarket handles hundreds of millions in weekly volume and seeks to attract more.

Polymarket, a prediction market platform, has prepared a comprehensive overhaul of its trading infrastructure, set to launch in the coming two to three weeks. The core of the upgrade remains CTF Exchange V2, an updated version of the platform's core contract.

In a detailed X post shared by the Polymarket development team on Monday, the platform provided a detailed overview, including the upgrade to its smart contracts, a rebuilt order book, and a dedicated collateral token aimed at improving efficiency, lowering costs, and supporting more sophisticated trading.

CTF Exchange V2 introduces an optimized and simplified order structure, faster order matching, backing EIP-1271 signatures, builder codes for on-chain order attribution, and optimized fee collection and distribution.

These changes are expected to reduce gas costs and give enhanced performance on the Polygon network. Polymarket has also planned to migrate its collateral from bridged USDC.e to a new native token known as Polymarket USD, supported 1:1 by Circle's USDC.

The platform will also release a new version of CLOB-Client SDKs in TypeScript, Python, and Go. The new SDKs will handle the V1-to-V2 transition for most integrations once developers update to the latest versions.

However, builders running custom bots or integrations will need to re-sign orders with the new structure. Also, the exact date and timing have not been determined yet and will be announced a week prior to the release.

Current data from DeFiLlama shows that the platform's total value locked is about $416 million, with weekly trading volumes consistently surpassing $900 million. The upgrade indicates the platform's efforts to scale infrastructure in an evolving and quickly growing sector.

The shift to a native collateral token reduces bridging risks, and EIP-1271 support and builder codes are likely to attract more institutional and algorithmic traders.

The upgrade is also followed by the announcement of a fresh $600 million investment by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, in the platform. The investment deepens ICE's commitment, which began in October 2025 with up to $1 billion.

As Polymarket scales its infrastructure to handle surging volumes, the backing signals growing confidence in the platform's long-term potential.

This technical realignment places Polymarket to manage higher throughput and more complex trading strategies, as prediction markets continue to expand beyond politics, sports, and economics.

The changes aim to offer a more robust and capital-efficient experience for users, which can also require a brief maintenance period. For the wider prediction markets industry, Polymarket's infrastructure upgrade highlights the increasing maturity as platforms compete for liquidity and institutional interest.