How to Deposit and Withdraw on Polymarket
Guide · 4 min read · published 2026-07-25 · updated 2026-07-25
Polymarket trades against pUSD, its own collateral token, one pUSD to one dollar. Everything about funding an account comes down to getting value into pUSD and back out again.
What pUSD is
pUSD is the collateral token used for all trading since the CLOB V2 upgrade. It wraps USDC.e one-for-one: deposit dollars-equivalent stablecoin, receive pUSD, trade with it, redeem winning shares back into pUSD. Positions and balances are denominated in it, and it has six decimals like USDC.
Depositing
- Connect a wallet. Your positions live in a Polymarket-derived wallet controlled by your signer.
- Choose a source. The bridge accepts transfers from major EVM chains, plus Solana and Bitcoin.
- Send. The bridge converts and credits pUSD to your trading wallet.
- Approve once. The first trade needs one approval batch so the exchange contracts can move your collateral and outcome tokens. It is relayed, so you do not pay gas.
Timing depends on the source chain's finality, not on Polymarket - minutes on most EVM chains, longer from Bitcoin.
Withdrawing
Withdrawals run through the same bridge in reverse: pick a destination chain, enter an amount, sign. USDC.e withdrawal is supported to EVM chains, Solana and Bitcoin. There is no Polymarket withdrawal fee; you pay whatever the destination chain costs.
Two things to check before you sign. First, that the destination address is on the chain you selected - a Solana address pasted into an EVM field is not recoverable. Second, that you have no open positions you meant to close: only free collateral can leave, positions have to be sold or redeemed first.
Redeeming winnings
When a market resolves, winning shares are worth $1.00 each but are not automatically cash. Redeeming burns the outcome tokens through the collateral adapter and returns pUSD to your wallet. Losing shares simply expire.
If you hold both sides of the same market in equal size, merging is the faster route: it converts a matched pair straight back into collateral without waiting for resolution.
When a transfer sticks
- Deposit not showing. Check the source chain explorer first. If the transaction confirmed there, the bridge is still processing.
- Withdrawal pending. Relayer transactions return an id immediately and settle after; a pending state is normal for a few minutes.
- Balance visible but untradeable. Usually a missing approval. Re-run the approval step.
- Compliance hold. Handled by the bridge provider, not by third-party tools like this one - contact Polymarket support.
Merging instead of waiting
There is a shortcut worth knowing. If you hold matched YES and NO shares in the same market, you do not have to wait for resolution to free the capital: merging converts the pair straight back into collateral. One YES plus one NO is worth exactly $1.00 by construction, so the merge is instant and riskless.
The mirror operation is splitting: turn $1.00 of collateral into one YES and one NO, then sell whichever side you do not want. On a market where one side is thinly quoted, splitting and selling can get you a better fill than buying the side you want directly.
Approvals, and why the first action fails
Redeem, merge and split move outcome tokens through collateral adapters, and each adapter needs its own one-time approval. Binary markets and neg-risk markets use different adapters, so approving one does not cover the other - a first redeem on a multi-outcome market can fail even though redeeming worked fine last week on a binary one. Approve, then retry. Background is in the CLOB V2 reference.
Costs and timing at a glance
- Deposit: no platform fee; you pay the source chain. Minutes on most EVM chains, longer from Bitcoin.
- Trading: no gas; a taker fee in some categories. See the fee guide.
- Redeem and merge: relayed, so no gas from you.
- Withdrawal: no platform fee; destination chain costs apply.
Practical safety habits
- Test with a small amount first when you use a new chain or a new destination address.
- Match the address to the chain. A Solana address in an EVM field is not recoverable by anyone.
- Keep some balance free. Only unencumbered collateral can leave; positions must be sold, merged or redeemed first.
- Self-custody cuts both ways. No one can freeze your funds, and no one can restore them if you lose your keys.
- Ignore anyone who offers to help you withdraw. Support staff never need your seed phrase, and neither does any tool - including this one.
Watching your balance
Once funded, the profile page shows positions, realized and unrealized PnL and full activity history for the connected wallet. Any public wallet can be inspected the same way from the leaderboard, which is also the quickest way to sanity-check that a deposit landed where you expected.
This is a general description of how the platform works, not financial or tax advice, and details change - check Polymarket's own documentation before moving significant amounts.