Will the prediction market Polymarket, which has raised over $600 million in bets on the US presidential election, become the 'antidote' to Algorithm's monopoly on information?

Author: Weilin, PANews

As the discussion on the US election becomes more intense, Polymarket has become a hot topic. As of August 14th, the betting amount for the prediction of the ‘US election winner’ on Polymarket has reached 589 million US dollars, and when combined with other election-related predictions, the total amount exceeds 600 million US dollars.

From breaking the mainstream narrative of the general election, bringing the possibility of Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate race to the public, to predicting a high probability of J.D Vance becoming the Republican vice presidential candidate, and predicting the vocabulary that Trump and Musk might mention in their conversation, Polymarket has brought more suspense to the competition for the presidency between the two parties in the United States, and vividly presented users with more authentic perspectives.

Recently, Polymarket announced the joining of well-known election data expert Nate Silver. In the era of social media algorithms, Polymarket aggregates information from various channels, presenting users’ views through betting and probabilities, which can vividly and accurately reflect people’s opinions and the likelihood of real events. It has also gained more and more references from professional media and individuals. By excluding content created for traffic and eyeballs, Polymarket could become an ‘antidote’ for the social media algorithm era.

Successfully predicting Biden’s withdrawal and J.D Vance’s nomination, Polymarket is “out of the circle”

On August 13, Polymarket users spent nearly $5 million betting on what former President Trump and Tesla CEO Musk would say when they talked. Overall, there are 11 related markets with significant volume on Polymarket, covering specific cryptocurrency terms such as “BTC” and “Cryptocurrency”, as well as more political topics like “civil war” and “audit system”.

On July 30, 9 days after Biden announced his withdrawal, the prediction market Polymarket has emerged with some hot topics, such as ‘Who will be the Democratic vice presidential candidate?’ Mark Kelly has a 37% probability, Josh Shapiro has a 34% probability. ‘Can Biden end his term smoothly?’ The probability is 74%. These new topics provide unique and interesting perspectives and new topics for users following the U.S. election.

On July 21st, the current US President Biden suddenly announced his withdrawal from the 2024 US presidential election. However, Polymarket had predicted this issue earlier, despite Biden’s repeated denial and the ambiguous attitude of mainstream media reports. In the end, the betting amount on Polymarket reached $21.12 million, and users expressed their views through betting, successfully breaking the mainstream narrative, making users and voters who were previously unfamiliar with this platform surprised and increasingly valued this prediction market.

Before July 15th, Polymarket successfully reflected the possibility of J.D Vance as a potential candidate for the Republican vice president. There were 6.45 million dollars betting on Vance, and Vivek Ramaswamy had about 6.67 million dollars bet, which was comparable to Vance. Without Polymarket, Vance’s chances of winning might have been reflected through lengthy polls, and polls and media interviews, often influenced by political parties, often cannot dynamically reflect a large number of individual opinions.

From a theoretical perspective, Polymarket’s users aggregate all available data, including polls and other data, and then synchronize it with their own views on probabilities. This is also Polymarket’s advantage over opinion polls, as it aggregates information from almost all aspects.

Renowned election data expert Nate Silver joined, volume repeatedly hit new highs

On May 14th this year, Polymarket announced that it has raised $70 million in two rounds of financing. The latest round of financing was led by Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm Founders Fund, and Polymarket’s investors also include Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum. This news also caused some attention in the encryption industry at the time, and PANews also wrote an article introducing the growth history of Polymarket.

On July 17th, Nate Silver, a well-known data expert for elections, joined Polymarket as an advisor. The founder of the election forecasting platform FiveThirtyEight was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2009, as his election prediction system successfully forecasted 49 out of 50 state results in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. His subsequent election prediction systems accurately forecasted the presidential election results in 2012 and 2020. His model gave Trump a 28.6% chance of winning the 2016 presidential election, a probability higher than many other competing forecasts.

On July 17th, Nate Silver, a well-known data expert in the election, joined Polymarket. Now, Nate Silver will provide advice on strategy and media relations for Polymarket, and include Polymarket data in his writing. In addition, his arrival is expected to bring better quality, professionalism, and attention to Polymarket’s election betting.

On July 25th, according to Dune’s data, Polymarket’s volume surpassed $1 billion amid the arrival of heavyweight advisors and the ongoing election topic. From July 1st to 30th, the volume exceeded $300 million. David Rosenberg, the Vice President of Strategy at Polymarket, stated, ‘Our vision has become a reality, and we are extremely proud of it.’

Bets on Polymarket are not limited to elections. On this platform, users can discover new perspectives, topics, and hotspots. The platform also has multiple zones including Cryptocurrency, sports, and popular culture.

Polymarket is widely cited and may become the “antidote” to Algorithm

As a result, Polymarket has continuously disrupted the narratives of mainstream media and information channels, and has gradually become a source of reference and investigation tools for professionals and traditional media such as Bloomberg. The vision of the Polymarket team is that it is a platform to find the truth in media narratives and social media 01928374656574839201.

“On social media, people are motivated to create the most ‘engaging’ content, but it is often the most sensational and often not genuine. These incentives are anti-truth. At Polymarket, people win bets for being right and lose bets for being wrong. This creates the right incentives for truth. This is also the ‘antidote’ for Algorithm,” 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: due to the existence of Polymarket, people are gaining a better understanding of what is happening in the world. We are fed up with self-proclaimed experts and news generated by Algorithm. In this era of rampant misinformation, Polymarket provides a new form of information driven by financial incentives for truth, rather than by clickbait. People want fair information. Polymarket is providing that.”

Based on these, Polymarket has also become an innovative fusion of social media, betting markets, and entertainment platforms, where users can deposit USDC for encryption betting, with convenient interaction.

Polymarket is also integrating with content platforms. On July 30th, the well-known content subscription payment platform Substack announced the launch of an embedded prediction market feature from Polymarket, marking the launch of its new Substack THE ORACLE by Polymarket. In The Oracle, readers will find insights and analysis from thousands of active markets on the Polymarket trading platform. Polymarket’s The Oracle will regularly summarize some notable markets and their key statistics, and provide in-depth analysis of some of the hottest issues at the moment.

On August 13th, Polymarket announced a partnership with AI-driven search engine Perplexity to provide users with real-time news summaries of events. Perplexity will use Polymarket’s data, such as election trends, to generate visual content, which will be generated through the AI platform Tako.

In the future, Polymarket may have a token generation event (TGE), but the date is yet to be determined. PANews will closely follow the progress of the project and bring the latest news.