The prediction betting for the U.S. election exceeds $600 million. Will the out-of-the-box prediction market Polymarket become the "antidote" to algorithmic monopoly on information?
As the discussion around the U.S. election intensifies, Polymarket has "gone mainstream."Author: Weilin, PANews
As discussions about the US election intensify, Polymarket has "broken out." As of August 14, the betting amount on "US election winner" on Polymarket has reached $589 million, and with other election-themed predictions, the total amount far exceeds $600 million.
From breaking the mainstream election narrative and bringing the possibility of Democratic presidential candidate Biden's withdrawal into the public eye, to predicting that J.D. Vance has a high probability of being the Republican vice-presidential candidate, as well as forecasting the vocabulary that might be mentioned in a conversation between Trump and Musk, the prediction market Polymarket has added more suspense to the competition for the presidency between the two major parties in the US, vividly presenting more genuine opinions from users.
Recently, Polymarket announced the joining of renowned election data expert Nate Silver. In today's era of social media algorithms, Polymarket aggregates information from various channels and displays users' opinions through betting and probabilities, which can more vividly and accurately reflect people's opinions and the likelihood of real-world events. It has also been increasingly cited by professional media and individuals. By excluding content aimed at attracting attention for traffic, Polymarket may become an "antidote" to the algorithms of the social media era.
Successfully predicting Biden's withdrawal and J.D. Vance's nomination, Polymarket "breaks out"
On August 13, Polymarket users spent nearly $5 million betting on what former President Trump would say during a conversation with Tesla CEO Musk. Overall, there were 11 related markets on Polymarket with significant trading volume, covering specific cryptocurrency terms like "Bitcoin" and "cryptocurrency," as well as more political topics like "civil war" and "censorship."
On July 30, nine days after Biden announced his withdrawal, Polymarket saw some hot topics emerge, such as "Who will be the Democratic vice-presidential candidate?" with Mark Kelly at a 37% probability and Josh Shapiro at a 34% probability. "Will Biden be able to finish his term smoothly?" had a probability of 74%. These new topics provided users interested in the US election with unique and interesting perspectives.
On July 21, current President Biden suddenly announced his withdrawal from the 2024 US election. However, prior to that, Polymarket had already made predictions on this topic, despite Biden repeatedly denying related news and mainstream media's ambiguous reporting. Ultimately, the betting amount on Polymarket reached $21.12 million, allowing users to express their views through betting, successfully breaking the mainstream narrative and making users and voters who were previously unaware of this platform increasingly value this prediction market.
Before July 15, Polymarket also successfully reflected the possibility of J.D. Vance being one of the Republican vice-presidential candidates. There were $6.45 million in bets on Vance, while Vivek Ramaswamy had about $6.67 million in bets, nearly on par with Vance. Without Polymarket, Vance's winning probability might only be reflected through lengthy polling, and polls and media interviews often fail to dynamically represent a large number of individual opinions due to party influences.
In principle, Polymarket users aggregate all available data, including polls and other information, and then they can synchronize this with their own views on probabilities. This is also Polymarket's advantage over polls, as it aggregates information from almost all aspects.
Renowned election data expert Nate Silver joins, trading volume hits new highs
On May 14 this year, Polymarket announced that it had raised $70 million through two rounds of financing, with the latest round led by Peter Thiel's venture capital firm Founders Fund, and investors also included Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. This news attracted some attention in the crypto industry at the time, and PANews also published an article introducing Polymarket's growth history.
On July 17, renowned election data expert Nate Silver joined Polymarket as a consultant. The founder of the election prediction platform FiveThirtyEight was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2009 for his election prediction system, which successfully predicted 49 out of 50 states in the 2008 US presidential election. The election prediction system he subsequently developed accurately predicted the results of the 2012 and 2020 presidential elections. His model gave Trump a 28.6% chance of winning in the 2016 presidential election, a probability higher than many other predictive competitors.
On July 17, renowned election data expert Nate Silver joined Polymarket
Now, Nate Silver will provide advice to Polymarket on strategy and media relations, and include Polymarket's data in his writing. Additionally, his arrival is expected to enhance the quality, professionalism, and attention of Polymarket's election betting.
With the arrival of heavyweight advisors and the ongoing election topics, on July 25, according to Dune data, Polymarket's trading volume surpassed $1 billion. The trading volume from July 1 to 30 exceeded $300 million. Polymarket's strategic vice president David Rosenberg stated, "Our vision has become a reality, and we are very proud of it."
Bets on Polymarket are not limited to elections; on this platform, users can discover new viewpoints, topics, and trends, with sections covering cryptocurrency, sports, and pop culture.
Polymarket widely cited, may become the "antidote" to algorithms
As a result, Polymarket has continuously broken the narratives of mainstream media and information channels, gradually becoming a source and research tool cited by professional and traditional media such as Bloomberg. The vision of the Polymarket team is that it is a platform for seeking truth amid media narratives and social media algorithms.
"In social media, people are incentivized to create the most 'engaging' content, but this is often the most inflammatory and frequently untrue. These incentives are anti-truth. At Polymarket, people win bets for being correct and lose bets for being wrong. This creates the right incentives for truth. This is also the 'antidote' to algorithms," Polymarket told PANews.
As founder Shayne Coplan recently stated on LinkedIn, "What is most gratifying is seeing Polymarket widely adopted as an alternative news source. The trend is clear: because of Polymarket's existence, people are more aware of what is happening in the world. They are fed up with those bloviating experts and algorithm-generated news. In this age of rampant misinformation, Polymarket provides a new form of information driven by financial incentives for truth, rather than clickbait. People want fair information. Polymarket is providing that."
Based on this, Polymarket has also become an innovative fusion of social media, betting markets, and entertainment platforms, allowing crypto users to bet by depositing USDC, making interaction convenient.
Polymarket is also integrating with content platforms. On July 30, the well-known content subscription platform Substack announced the launch of a prediction market embedding feature from Polymarket, marking the launch of its new Substack THE ORACLE by Polymarket. In The Oracle, readers will find insights and analyses derived from thousands of active markets on the Polymarket trading platform. Polymarket's The Oracle will regularly summarize notable markets and their key statistics, providing in-depth analysis of some of the hottest issues.
On August 13, Polymarket announced a partnership with the AI-driven search engine Perplexity to provide users with news summaries of real-time events. Perplexity will use Polymarket's data (such as election trends) to generate visual content, which will be produced through the AI platform Tako.
In the future, Polymarket may have a token generation event (TGE), although the date is yet to be determined. PANews will closely monitor the project's progress and bring the latest news.
