Nothing to see here, just another content shedding light on the growing concept of “building on-chain”.
I believe I've talked about prediction markets a couple of times in the past, I can't quite find the post right now but off the top of my head, I feel like it was in relation to “predicting bitcoin mining difficulty”. Well, either I wrote about it or read about it, the lines can get pretty blurry there.
That said, more recently, I talked about prediction markets and this time, it was in relation to Polymarket, a seemingly hot on-chain prediction market in the political world.
This project recently raised $70 million for continuous development of its platform for those we love numbers.
Now, I lack sufficient knowledge on how Polymarket works in its entirety and frankly I'm too lazy to dig deeper because when I did surface research into the project, I mostly found seemingly little data on its underlying technology.
That said, I do not expect that this functions on a fully on-chain integrated design, lots of what makes it up could be maintained off-chain but bets are made in crypto last I checked.
That all, not necessarily a problem, so long as it has crypto in its branding, it brings needed exposure and that's a win to some extent. I figure that my lack of significant interest in the process may stem from the fact that it is infested with political bets and I am simply not a fan.
Trump can call himself Crypto Jesus or Noah, whatever, I wouldn't bet my most hated pair of socks that he gives a shit about the technology at the end of the day, it's all just marketing really, gotta give the people what they want - the lies they can relate to.
Pancakeswap Is Still Cooking It Appears
What is being deployed here is basically futures trading on a much smaller and less extensive scale.
You simply log on, predict the direction of the market and either get rewarded or rekt 10 minutes later. Yep, that's how short a time-frame it lasts.
But of course, there's more:
We are excited to announce PancakeSwap’s Prediction Market on Arbitrum, featuring an AI-driven price feed powered by Allora! Following the success of our Swap, Yield Farming, Syrup Pools, Perpetuals, and Options Trading features, this expansion signifies our commitment to delivering a wide array of functionalities to our diverse user base on Arbitrum. To mark this occasion, we’re launching a 9-week campaign with a total reward pool of 60,000 ARB. Read on to learn more about this campaign.
For those looking to participate, here's the announcement post
But what's more important to note is that the prediction market is led by an artificial intelligence software developed by Allora.
How?
Well basically, the AI makes a prediction of the direction of the market and users get to choose if to trust the AI’s prediction or bet against it.
On the interface, you can align with the AI's forecast by selecting "Follow" or go "Against" the AI by not following it. Please note that you will only see whether the AI predicts the price to rise or fall after placing your bet. Both "Follow" and "Against" bets will be placed by users, meaning the AI will not predict against any user. Instead, users choose to either trust the AI or go against it based on their judgment.
It is an interesting development to say the least. The idea of aligning with the AI or betting against its intelligence really does add fun gamification to what's designed to aid people lose money fast, hehe.
In a sense, it takes away the burden of needing to be a smart market analyst and rather, enforces the gambling culture which typically promotes making bets off the top of one's head because at the end of the day, it's largely a game of luck - provably fair play.
It will be interesting to see how much on-chain activities this generates on the Arbitrum network.