DeFi protocol Drift has launched a prediction market known as BET on the Solana blockchain, in response to an Aug. 19 assertion.
Cindy Leow, co-founder of Drift Protocol, likened BET’s prediction markets to perpetual buying and selling. She defined that simply as perpetual merchants wager on the potential value fluctuations of cryptocurrencies, prediction markets permit folks to position monetary bets on the result of real-world occasions.
She mentioned:
“Bringing real-world occasions into permissionless financialization paves the best way for betting on all the pieces from putting hyperlocal bets with a couple of pals to predicting the result of the U.S. presidential election.”
Options of BET
BET works equally to Polymarket, permitting customers to purchase YES or NO shares on occasions such because the upcoming US Presidential election.
Nonetheless, the Solana-based platform stands out by permitting customers to make use of over 30 completely different cryptocurrencies as collateral, together with USDC and SOL, and permits customers to earn returns on their belongings earlier than the result of an occasion is finalized.
Moreover, BET additionally provides customers the flexibility to hedge their predictions with “structured bets,” which permit customers to take lengthy positions in prediction markets whereas shorting Bitcoin. The platform additionally has a reward system known as FUEL, designed to drive buying and selling exercise and encourage consumer engagement.
BET will initially concentrate on the US elections, however plans are afoot to develop into different areas, together with Method 1 and different cryptocurrencies, in addition to cultural occasions.
Recognition of prediction markets
Decentralized prediction markets have surged in recognition this 12 months because of the success of Polymarkets. These platforms permit customers to wager on a variety of occasions, from sports activities outcomes to geopolitical occasions.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has praised prediction markets as one of many main social consciousness applied sciences of the 2020s.
“[These markets]are truth-seeking, democratic and constructed round open public participation, not pre-selected elites.”
However because the market has grown in recognition, it has additionally come underneath elevated regulatory scrutiny, with the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC) and lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren expressing concern concerning the influence of those bets on the general public curiosity and calling for regulation.
Conversely, key gamers within the cryptocurrency trade, reminiscent of Coinbase and Gemini, are opposed to those regulatory strikes, arguing that they’re economically flawed.
