Polymarket Smart Money API
OrcaLayer API is an analytics layer on top of Polymarket's free Data API. The official API returns raw trades, positions and P&L; OrcaLayer returns what you would otherwise have to compute from them: win rate per resolved market, smart money, farmer and bot flags, smart money consensus on each market, and whale alerts.
Polymarket Data API vs OrcaLayer API
The official API is free and the right tool for raw positions and trades. OrcaLayer is for the metrics and signals built from them.
| Polymarket Data API (v2) | OrcaLayer API | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free tier; Premium $19.99/mo |
| Trades, activity and open positions of a wallet | Yes | Open positions free; full trade history on Premium |
| Lifetime P&L and P&L history | Yes | Yes, plus P&L per resolved market |
| Leaderboard | By P&L or volume | By P&L, win rate, volume or trades, per category, farmers and bots removed |
| Win rate per resolved market | No | Yes, NegRisk-corrected |
| Smart money, farmer and bot flags | No | Yes, published method |
| Smart money consensus on a market | No | Yes |
| Whale alerts | Poll trades yourself | Smart-money trades feed and live stream (Premium), webhooks (Business) |
| Several wallets in one call | One wallet per call | 50 overviews or 20 position sets per call (Premium) |
| Copy-trading check and backtest | No | Yes (Premium) |
| MCP server for Claude, Cursor | No | Yes, public tools without a key |
Official API checked on 13 Nov 2026 against data-api.polymarket.com v2: user-stats returns lifetime P&L, biggest win and trade count, and the leaderboard ranks by P&L and volume. Win rate, the Smart Money test and the farmer filter are described on the methodology page.
Which API you need
A trading bot that reacts to smart money
Whale alerts or the live stream for Smart Money trades as they land, and the market's consensus before you enter. Prices, order books and orders stay on Polymarket's own APIs.
Copy trading
Shortlist wallets from the Smart Money leaderboard, run copy-check and a backtest of their resolved positions, then follow new trades through whale alerts.
A dashboard or research
Wallet records, up to 50 wallets per call, and consensus per market. For one wallet's raw trades or prices, Polymarket's free Data API is enough.
An AI agent
Add https://orcalayer.com/mcp to Claude, Cursor or any MCP client: five read-only tools need no account, and a Premium key adds whale alerts, the P&L leaderboard and resolution events.
Five endpoints to start with
Responses are trimmed to the fields that matter here, and the numbers in them are examples. Premium endpoints take your key as Authorization: Bearer. All endpoints and parameters are in the docs and in the OpenAPI 3.1 spec.
Smart money wallets
FREEWallets that pass the Smart Money test, sorted by P&L, win rate, volume or trades. category narrows to one market category.
curl "https://orcalayer.com/api/v2/whales/leaderboard?sort=pnl&category=POLITICS&limit=20"{ "whales": [ { "wallet": "0x…", "name": "…",
"total_pnl": 1250000.0, "market_win_rate": 71.4,
"resolved_markets": 84, "profit_factor": 3.2,
"main_category": "POLITICS" } ],
"total": 203836, "sort": "pnl" }A wallet's record
FREEWin rate per resolved market, wins and losses, lifetime P&L, profit factor and the smart money and bot flags for one wallet.
curl "https://orcalayer.com/api/v2/wallet/0xWALLET/overview"{ "stats": { "resolved": 14, "wins": 12, "losses": 2,
"market_win_rate": 85.7, "total_pnl": 22053933.75,
"profit_factor": 11920.18,
"is_smart": true, "is_bot": false } }Smart money consensus on a market
FREEHow many Smart Money wallets hold each side, how many hold both, and the share of one-sided dollars on YES.
curl "https://orcalayer.com/api/v2/market/MARKET_ID"{ "whales": { "yes": 38, "no": 137, "both_sides": 15,
"yes_pct": 21.7,
"net": { "yes": 24, "no": 128, "yes_pct_usd": 0.6 } } }Whale alerts
PREMIUMRecent trades by Smart Money wallets: who traded (with their record), the trade and the market. A live stream of the same trades is at /api/public/v1/live/trades.
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $ORCALAYER_KEY" \
"https://orcalayer.com/api/public/v1/whale-alerts?minutes=10&min_usd=10000"{ "alerts": [ { "timestamp": 1794576379,
"whale": { "wallet": "0x…", "win_rate": 60.8, "is_smart": true },
"trade": { "action": "BUY", "side": "YES", "price": 0.81,
"usd_amount": 16150.0 },
"market": { "id": "…", "question": "…", "price_now": 0.78 } } ] }Copy check
PREMIUMWhat a follower copying this wallet 1, 5 or 30 minutes late would have earned per dollar on its recent resolved positions, next to the wallet's own result.
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $ORCALAYER_KEY" \
"https://orcalayer.com/api/v2/whale/0xWALLET/copy-check?days=60"{ "wallet_edge_per_usd": 0.0288,
"follower": {
"1m": { "edge_per_usd": 0.0261, "followable_positions": 148 },
"30m": { "edge_per_usd": 0.0165, "followable_positions": 141 } } }Also on Premium: batch lookups (POST /api/public/v1/wallets/overview, up to 50 wallets), big positions, whale flips, a backtest of a wallet's resolved positions, a wallet's full trade history, and market resolution events with webhooks.
Prices and limits
| API | Price | Limit | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polymarket Data API | Free | Public | Raw trades, positions, P&L, leaderboard |
| OrcaLayer Premium | $19.99/mo or $199.90/yr | 600 requests/min, 25,000/day | Analytics endpoints, whale alerts, live stream, MCP with a key |
| Polywhaler Quant | $59/mo, or $359/yr on a limited-time offer | 10,000 requests/day | REST API and MCP server |
| Bitquery Pro | $69/mo billed annually | About 200,000 calls/month, 90/min | Raw on-chain data over GraphQL; history is a paid add-on |
Prices as published on each vendor's pricing page on 13 Nov 2026. Without a key, OrcaLayer's public endpoints allow about 200 requests a minute per IP; Business ($99/mo) allows 3,000 a minute. Full plan list: pricing; how we compare as a product: OrcaLayer vs Polywhaler.
Frequently asked questions
Does Polymarket's API return win rate?
No. Polymarket's Data API returns trades, activity, open positions, a wallet's lifetime P&L and a P&L leaderboard, but no win rate (checked 13 Nov 2026). OrcaLayer's wallet overview returns market_win_rate: the share of a wallet's resolved markets that ended in profit, counted per market rather than per trade and corrected for NegRisk multi-outcome markets.
How do I get a list of smart money wallets via API?
Call GET https://orcalayer.com/api/v2/whales/leaderboard. It is free and needs no key. It returns wallets that pass the Smart Money test (win rate of 55% or more per resolved market, positive P&L, not a farmer or bot, not losing by Polymarket's own count), sorted by P&L, win rate, volume or trades, with an optional category filter. Up to 100 rows per call, paged with offset.
Is there a Polymarket whale alerts API with webhooks?
Yes. On Premium, GET /api/public/v1/whale-alerts returns recent trades by Smart Money wallets with the wallet's record, the trade and the market, and a live stream pushes them as they happen. Signed webhooks to your own server for whale and wallet trades are on Business; market resolution and ISW frontline webhooks are on Premium.
What are the OrcaLayer API rate limits?
Without a key, the public endpoints allow about 200 requests a minute per IP, and wallet overview and positions 300 a day per IP. Premium ($19.99/mo) allows 600 requests a minute and 25,000 a day per account (the day resets at 00:00 UTC); a batch call counts once per wallet in it. Business ($99/mo) allows 3,000 requests a minute with no daily cap.
Can I use it from Claude or Cursor (MCP)?
Yes. Add https://orcalayer.com/mcp as a remote MCP server: five read-only tools (leaderboard, wallet overview, wallet positions, market search and market consensus) work with no account. With a Premium key in the request header it also lists whale alerts, the P&L leaderboard and market resolution events. A local version installs with uvx orcalayer-mcp.
Which API should I use for a Polymarket copy trading bot?
Use both. Polymarket's Data API and CLOB for prices, order books and placing orders; OrcaLayer to choose and watch the wallets: the Smart Money leaderboard to shortlist, copy-check to see what a follower copying a wallet 1, 5 or 30 minutes late would have earned, a backtest of its resolved positions, and whale alerts for its new trades. A record on resolved markets describes the past, not the next trade.
Start with the free endpoints
The leaderboard, wallet records and market consensus answer without a key.