No crystal ball? No problem. Meet crypto ball! Muyao S. writes for Bloomberg: "Taking a look at the X feed of Shayne Coplan, the founder of the blockchain-based betting platform Polymarket, it’s easy to buy into what he believes: Prediction markets are the future of news, at least stories trying to predict the outcome of big events. Polymarket was the first place to call J.D. Vance as former president Donald Trump’s vice president pick, Coplan said on X. The betting market also “priced” Biden’s chances of dropping out of of the presidential race earlier than the media and with a higher probability, he wrote in another post." The theory underlying Polymarket? "To some degree, it’s true that prediction markets like Polymarket seem to be more accurate than predictive media headlines. After all, when enough money is at stake, people tend to be more truthful and serious. And the real-time element of the predictions market allows for dynamic updates on the possibilities of different outcomes, exactly like what a global news desk strives to do with reporting." Ah, the good old wisdom of the crowd married to some stakes to keep it real. "“Polymarket’s market pricing is interesting insight into the wisdom of the crowds and people’s perception of what is or is not likely to happen, which I think is really where Polymarket competes with the news,” said Tom Schmidt, a general partner at venture capital firm Dragonfly, which is a Polymarket investor. Op-eds, on the other hand, “are one person’s opinion and in many ways it’s better to get an average of the crowd,” he added." 🤔 That's one opinion, and a conflicted one at that. I'm pretty sure even parents are more reliable judges of their children's prospects than VCs who've invested in a company they're shilling. As to the brilliance of Polymarket, two predictions hardly a crystal ball makes. And Coplan fails to mention Polymarket's apparent failure to predict the SEC approval of the ETH ETF (https://lnkd.in/g8ZFr7NF) until news from the SEC broke (https://lnkd.in/gDFhEm43). And as Shen explained: "First, a look back at the history of predictions markets in general and Polymarket specifically shows that they have heavily relied on large news events like the US presidential election to generate volumes and buzz, which means that the betting markets could end up influencing real-life outcomes." Moreover, that "crowd" looks a little Trumpian: "At the same time, even though Polymarket logged record high volume in July at above $271 million, that only involved about 33,540 active traders, based on data created by Dune Analytics user rchen8. That many participants may not be a large enough sample to provide the most accurate information." Let's call a spade a spade. Gamblers gotta gamble: https://lnkd.in/ge3rPkDu. Roll the dice often enough; you're sure to get snake eyes. That's probabilities, not prediction. It's a ball alright, but a bingo ball, not a crystal ball. https://lnkd.in/gcW2_PjD
Dr Fred J.
3mo
Panem et circenses! Again 😤
Nicholas Clarke
3mo
Boglehead nightmare; The most speculative of speculating. 🙈
I wonder if Macau, Sentosa, Las Vegas or the London bookies saw this coming