How it works

What a market is

A market is a question about something that hasn’t happened yet, with 2 to 6 possible answers. For example: “Will Boca win the next Superclásico?”, with “Yes” and “No”.

Every market has a closing time and rules that say which source decides the result, such as the organizer’s official result. Those rules are written into the contract when the market is created, before anyone buys.

Every market opens only after the Predik team approves it.

The price is the probability

Each answer has a price between 0 and 1 USDC a share, and the percentage you see is that price. If “Yes” is at 44%, a “Yes” share costs about 0.44 USDC: the market gives it a 44% chance.

Across all the answers, they add up to 100% (or close to it, after rounding). When someone buys an answer, its price goes up and the others go down; when someone sells, the opposite happens.

Pre-market and graduation

Before it opens, every market goes through a pre-market: people commit USDC to the answer they think will win, and that money gets the market going. Committing has no fee.

You can commit from 1 USDC, and nobody can commit more than 33% of the market’s money goal. What you commit can’t be sold or withdrawn while the pre-market lasts.

The market graduates the moment it reaches both goals: it goes live, and what you committed turns into shares of your answer. Whoever commits earlier gets more shares per USDC, because an answer’s price rises with every commitment to it. In total, the people who committed to an answer split 0.99 shares for every USDC committed to it.

Every pre-market has a deadline, never later than the event. If it doesn’t reach both goals in time, the market is voided and you get back everything you committed.

Buying while it’s live

Once the market is live, anyone can buy and sell. The price is set by an automated market maker, the CS-LMSR: a formula in the contract that moves the price with every buy and every sale. Nobody sets it by hand.

To buy, you pick an answer, enter how much you want to spend, from 1 USDC, and confirm. Before you confirm, the app shows how many shares you get, the fee and what you’d collect if it wins. The more you buy at once, the more the price rises as you buy, so you get a bit less per USDC.

If the price moves more than your slippage tolerance before the buy confirms, the buy doesn’t go through and your money doesn’t move.

Once the closing time arrives, nobody can buy or sell: all that’s left is to wait for the result.

Selling before the close

While the market is live, up to its closing time, you can sell your shares at that moment’s price. Selling has no fee, and the money goes straight to your wallet.

The price drops as you sell: if you sell a lot of shares at once, you get a bit less for each one. What you get can be more or less than you paid.

How the result is decided

The result is decided by the Predik team, by hand, using the public source each market names in its rules, such as the organizer’s official result. There are no automated oracles or votes.

From the closing time on, the team proposes the result and a dispute window opens. Nobody gets paid while it’s open.

See a mistake? Email support@predik.io before the window closes, with the market link, the result you think is right and the source that shows it. Disputing costs nothing. The team can correct the result while the window is still open; a correction doesn’t extend it.

Once the window closes, the result is final and is confirmed on the blockchain. From then on you can collect.

Collecting when you’re right

Each share of the winning answer pays 1 USDC; shares of the other answers pay nothing.

Winnings don’t arrive on their own: you collect them from your Portfolio, under “Ready to collect”, or from the market page. If you have several markets to collect, “Collect all” collects them in one step. What you collect goes straight to your wallet, in USDC.

Collecting is never paused, and the contract sets no deadline for it.

If a market is voided

A market is voided if it doesn’t reach its goals in the pre-market, if the event is cancelled or can’t be verified, or if 14 days pass without the result being proposed or confirmed.

If it’s voided in the pre-market, you get back everything you committed.

If it’s voided after it went live, each share is refunded at its last price, the one it had when trading stopped. That can be more or less than you paid, and if you committed in the pre-market it can be much less than you put in.

Refunds don’t arrive on their own either: you collect them from the market, like winnings. What’s left in the pool after the refunds goes to Predik.

Fees

You only pay a fee when you buy in a live market: 1% of the amount, already included in what you enter.

The buy fee is split between Predik (70%) and whoever created the market (30%).

Also, when a market resolves, what’s left in its pool after paying 1 USDC for each winning share goes to Predik.