Last updated: July 2026.
If you want Polymarket whale data in your own code, a dashboard, a trading model, an AI agent, you need an API, not a website. Here is what the OrcaLayer REST API exposes and how to start.
How do developers access a Polymarket REST API?
Through the OrcaLayer API. It is a plain REST API over the same index the site runs on: over 1.2 billion trades read directly from the Polygon chain, farmer-filtered. Full access is on the Premium tier (19.99 dollars a month) at 600 requests per minute. Some read endpoints, wallet profiles, market search and the leaderboard, need no key at all, so you can prototype before paying anything.
Quickstart
- Sign up and upgrade to Premium.
- Go to Settings, API Keys, and generate a key. It uses the sk_orca_ prefix and is shown once.
- Call the API:
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_orca_XXXXXX" \
"https://orcalayer.com/api/public/v1/whales/leaderboard?limit=10"
Authentication works either as a Bearer token in the Authorization header or as an x-api-key header. Premium endpoints under /api/v2 expect x-api-key specifically. A missing or invalid key returns 401, a non-Premium plan on a Premium endpoint returns 403, and passing the rate limit returns 429 with a Retry-After header.
What the API exposes
- Whale leaderboards, farmer-filtered, with win rate, profit and profit factor
- Individual wallet profiles and full trade histories
- Recent whale trades and whale position flips
- Per-market whale activity
- Whale alerts data, the same stream that powers the alerts feed
- ISW Ukraine territory data
The numbers match what the site shows, because it is the same index and the same published methodology, including the farmer filter and NegRisk correction.
Clients and tooling
You do not have to start from raw REST:
- Python SDK: pip install orcalayer
- MCP server for AI agents: uvx orcalayer-mcp, so Claude, or any MCP-capable agent, can query whale data directly
- Claude Code agent skill for terminal workflows
- Whale watchlist monitor and a backtest cookbook as ready-made starting points
- OpenAPI spec at /api/openapi.json for generating typed clients in any language
All of them are linked from the API docs.
What to build on it
At 600 requests per minute you can poll a watchlist of wallets every few seconds and drive your own alerting, mirror the leaderboard into your own database, backtest wallet-following strategies against real resolved markets, or feed an AI agent live whale context through MCP. The wallet alerts guide covers the ready-made alerting if you would rather not build it yourself.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a REST API for Polymarket whale analytics? Yes. The OrcaLayer REST API serves whale leaderboards, wallet profiles and trades, whale alerts, market whale activity and ISW territory data over plain REST. Full access is on the Premium tier at 600 requests per minute; some read endpoints such as wallet profiles, market search and the leaderboard need no key at all.
How do I authenticate to the OrcaLayer API? Generate a key in Settings, API Keys, then send it as a Bearer token in the Authorization header or as an x-api-key header. Keys use the sk_orca_ prefix and are shown only once at creation.
Is there a Python SDK? Yes, pip install orcalayer. There is also an MCP server for AI agents (uvx orcalayer-mcp), a Claude Code agent skill, a whale watchlist monitor and a backtest cookbook, all linked from the API docs.
What data does the API expose? Whale leaderboards, individual wallet profiles and trade histories, recent whale trades, whale position flips, per-market whale activity, whale alerts and ISW Ukraine territory data. The same farmer-filtered index that powers the site.
What are the API rate limits? Premium runs at 600 requests per minute. Exceeding the limit returns HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header. A valid key on a non-Premium plan returns 403 for Premium endpoints.
Is there an OpenAPI spec? Yes, the machine-readable spec is served at /api/openapi.json, so you can generate a typed client in any language.