15-Minute Markets on Polymarket: 86% Win Rate, Negative P&L — Only 33% of Traders Profit

Polymarket offers markets that resolve in 15 minutes. Bitcoin up or down in the next quarter-hour. Quick, clean, binary. They feel like the simplest trade on the platform.

They are the most dangerous.

Across 4,838 wallets that have traded sub-1-hour markets on Polymarket, only 1,606 are profitable. That is 33.2% — the lowest of any duration category on the platform. Every other time horizon has more winners than this one.

The most popular short-duration product is Bitcoin Up or Down. 2,607 traders have opened 1.17 million positions on it. The overall win rate: 54.3%. More than half the trades end in profit. Yet only 36.2% of the traders themselves make money.

That gap — most trades win, most traders lose — is the entire story of this market.

Here is how the trap works. A 15-minute Bitcoin Up or Down market opens. BTC has been trending up. The "Up" side is priced at 96 cents. You buy. Almost always, the price holds and you collect your $1 payout — a 4-cent profit per share.

The rare times Bitcoin reverses, your 96-cent shares go to zero. You lose 96 cents to make 4.

Across 1.17 million Bitcoin Up or Down positions, entries at 95 to 100 cents win 86% of the time — and have lost a combined $792,564. Entries at 90 to 95 cents win 79.8% and have lost another $127,697. Two brackets with win rates most traders dream of, both net negative.

The crossover happens around 80 cents. Entries at 80 to 90 cents win 72.5% of the time and are collectively profitable at +$799,136. The sweet spot is the 60-to-70-cent range: a 65.5% win rate with +$6.05 million in total gains and the highest average profit per position at $56.60.

Below 50 cents — the longshot bets most traders avoid — have generated $12.19 million in total profit despite winning only 37% of the time. The cheaper the entry, the better the math. The more expensive the entry, the worse.

Meloune traded 113 Bitcoin Up or Down markets over three weeks in February 2026. Win rate: 79.6%. Total P&L: negative $42,240. Full profile at 0xinsider.com/polymarket/@Meloune.

The average entry sat between 88 and 94 cents — firmly in the bracket where the math is underwater. Wins paid 6 to 12 cents per share. Losses cost 88 to 94 cents. Biggest win: $5,819. Biggest loss: $40,000.

On February 11, everything clicked. 23 markets, $1.2 million in volume, cumulative P&L up to +$21,908. The confidence from a day like that — calling BTC direction correctly dozens of times, watching the balance climb — is hard to overstate.

February 12 erased it. 25 markets, $735,000 in volume, and a single 15-minute window — Bitcoin Up or Down, 5:15 AM to 5:30 AM ET — that cost $40,000. Meloune had bought 42,542 shares at 94 cents. Bitcoin went the other way. Cumulative P&L dropped to -$40,854 by end of day.

This is the standard outcome for traders buying near-certain outcomes in short-duration markets. Win small, win often, then give it all back in a handful of reversals.

The 528,491 positions entered below 50 cents have generated $12.19 million in total profit. The 132,111 positions entered above 95 cents have lost $792,564. The traders who lose most often make the most money. The traders who win most often lose it.

Cheap shares pay 50 to 95 cents when they hit. They cost 5 to 50 cents when they miss. One win at 10 cents covers nine losses.

Expensive shares pay 4 to 10 cents when they hit. They cost 90 to 96 cents when they miss. You need 19 consecutive wins to offset a single loss at the 95-cent bracket.

The emotional experience is inverted from the P&L. The trader winning 86% of the time feels like a genius. The trader winning 37% feels like a gambler. The data says the second one is making money.

Sub-1-hour markets: 33.2% of traders profitable. That is the worst. Every other duration is higher: 1 hour to 1 day sits at 53.9%, 1 to 3 days at 51.1%, 3 to 7 days at 49.1%, 1 to 4 weeks at 47.2%, and over 4 weeks at 50.6%.

In a 15-minute window, Bitcoin price movement is noise. No analysis reliably predicts which way BTC moves in the next quarter-hour. Longer markets let information price in — news breaks, data releases, trends develop. Traders with genuine edge can exploit the gap between market price and fair probability.

The other problem is speed. A trader can play twenty 15-minute markets in a single session. Each feels like a fresh bet. But the bankroll is shared. Meloune traded 25 markets on February 12 alone. In longer-duration markets, the spacing between resolution dates forces discipline.

Three patterns signal trouble in short-duration trading.

Your average entry price is above 85 cents. Across 1.17 million Bitcoin Up or Down positions, entries above 90 cents lose money in aggregate despite 80 to 86% win rates. The higher the price, the more flawless your timing needs to be. In a 15-minute window, timing is luck.

Your biggest loss exceeds five times your average win. Meloune lost $40,000 on one trade. Biggest win: $5,819. That is a 7:1 ratio on the extremes. When your downside is that asymmetric, a single bad trade erases months of work. Check this in your own history — search any wallet on the 0xinsider.com/leaderboard.

Your profit factor on short-duration trades is below 1.0. Gross profit divided by gross loss. Below 1.0 means you are losing money no matter your win rate. Meloune's profit factor: 0.686. For every dollar won, $1.46 lost.

Every 0xInsider profile breaks down performance by market duration. You can see exactly how much of your P&L comes from sub-1-hour markets versus longer trades. For many wallets, the split tells the whole story — profitable above an hour, bleeding below it.

Look up any wallet at 0xinsider.com/polymarket/@YourUsername — for example, 0xinsider.com/polymarket/@Meloune — and check the category performance breakdown. If sub-1-hour trades are dragging your P&L, cutting that one category might be the highest-impact change you make.