If you want Polymarket whale data in your own code, a dashboard, a trading model, or 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 1.5 billion fills 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. The tier breakdown and rate limits live on the developer page.
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
- A whale watchlist monitor and a backtest cookbook as ready-made starting points
- OpenAPI spec at
https://orcalayer.com/api/openapi.json for generating typed clients in any language
All of them are linked from the API docs at orcalayer.com/docs/api.
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.
FAQ
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?
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.
What are the rate limits?
Premium runs at 600 requests per minute. Exceeding the limit returns HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header.
Originally published on orcalayer.com.
