In-Depth Research Report on Prediction Markets: The Liquidity Paradigm, Industry Leap, and the New Primitives Revolution
Prediction markets began with academic and betting-exchange experiments such as the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM) and platforms like Betfair, then evolved into Ethereum-based on-chain experiments such as Augur, and more recently matured into today's duopoly structure dominated by, on one side, the decentralized route represented by Polymarket and, on the other, the regulated financial route represented by Kalshi, while in vertical domains like sports, crypto-assets and creator economy, new platforms such as Opinion, Limitless and PMX Trade have emerged. The innovation with real potential is shifting from “building another platform” toward the primitive-level commoditization and infrastructure construction of event contracts — encompassing perpetuals, options, indices, lending, and “smart AMMs” built around YES/NO shares; as well as the so-called “pickaxe business" such as data terminals, aggregation routing, bots, middleware, and compliance-tech. In the future, prediction markets may evolve into the “information-pricing layer” embedded in social media, news platforms, and financial terminals — with entrepreneurial and investment opportunities concentrated in key infrastructure directions like oracles and contract governance, liquidity and capital efficiency, distribution and interaction, as well as compliance and AI integration.
HTX Learn12/04 03:17
