Bet on the US election with sats on bitcoinprediction.market \ stacker news ~bitcoin

Bet on the US election with sats on bitcoinprediction.market www.bitcoinprediction.info/

10.1k sats \ 130k boost \ 172 comments \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION 13 Oct bitcoin

Feel free to suggest features or topics that you would like to bet on.

We're thinking of using ecash tokens to enable buying and selling of shares in events. Right now we have a set up where the "winners split the losers sats" (parimutuel betting market), but there are other more sophisticated market making mechanisms that enable more accurate forecasting (LMSR).

With ecash we could enable those mechanisms while preserving privacy. Basically we could create polymarket-level functionality without even requiring users to sign up—the ecash tokens would be downloaded, emailed, or sent to an ecash wallet, and selling or redeeming the shares could be facilitated by uploading the tokens.

If we represent shares as ecash tokens then the ecash basically operates as the authentication mechanism for ownership of shares. When you sell or redeem your shares, you could simply provide a lightning address. No need for identity tracking either, so you could place bets anonymously (as long as you can always generate a new lightning address).

Let me know if that sounds cool to y'all.

view all related items

104 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 13 Oct

Ecash DLCs would be pretty cool, see #544786

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

Yeah so it looks like ecash DLCs run into similar problems with standard DLCs in designing a prediction market with an LMSR market maker.

We did some research into creating an LMSR prediction market with DLCs earlier this year. The main problem with it is you need to code up a transfer mechanism for DLCs, and there are much higher liquidity requirements compared to ecash.

We really did want to go for a non-custodial technology as the base, but it would just massively increase the cost of development and time to market. Ecash can enable a pretty good UX of a prediction market natively with Bitcoin, comparable or even better than polymarket. No authentication needed, as the ecash token is the authentication mechanism for you to redeem the value of your shares. DLCs may make the prediction market UX worse than other platforms, and I feel like the trade off wouldn't be very profitable.

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 13 Oct

Interesting, I'll check it out.

132 sats \ 2 replies \ @Golu 14 Oct

Impressive! Do you have sports bet?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

We'll be rolling out sports markets soon. Which sports/topics/events would you be interested in betting in?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @billiam 23 Oct

Football, Europe Champions League.

30 sats \ 5 replies \ @IamSINGLE 13 Oct

It's cool. But open it for all only when everything is just fixed.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 13 Oct

We fixed payment reliability issues found in our previous iteration. It was caused by our channel setup. Our peers have improved, and so as the payment reliability.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 13 Oct

is cool to bet with your sats? That means you do not appreciate much your sats!

22 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

Sats are designed to be held or spent by the holder in any way they choose. P2P payments protocol- remember?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @f6287b82CC84bcbd 22 Oct

deleted by author

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 13 Oct

TBH, I don't bet. I've never done so except among friends.

I just said that the site looks cool. Read it again.

96 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 13 Oct

how does Bitcoinprediction fund itself?

IE what percentage of the betting pool does it take from the winner?

In general I see gambling as a losers game (when there is a centralised house taking in a guaranteed cut) but for a prediction market there is a case for it.

If it can serve to give a representation of what people believe will happen it could be of value- certainly more value than standard gambling operations.

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

Currently we are funded by Wolf and Entrepreneur First (two startup accelerators) and we're charging a 1% tx fee.

Yeah initially I thought prediction markets were just degen gambling, but now I realize that they are market-based forecasting tools that enable people to get a sense of what will happen in the future.

As a financial technology, Bitcoin is a prefect monetary mechanism to facilitate prediction markets due to its decentralized and censorship resistant nature. As a social technology, prediction markets offer a novel use-case for both Bitcoin and ecash, enabling people to use their Bitcoin for more than just hodl.

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 14 Oct

Thanks for your reply and 1% fee seems reasonable. We used to have a prediction website here in New Zealand and it was run by academics from one of the universities (using fiat) it was called 'ipredict' and it was very popular - unfortunately a supposedly right wing free markets government here closed it down- they did not like the idea of citizens having the ability to back their predictions with their own money. Alot of the political polling in New Zealand is partisan operated and they want to control it. So yes a Bitcoin based model is excellent and should be more resistant to meddling politicians who just want to control the narrative and not allow us to know what others are thinking and feeling about the issues of the day. Good on you for starting this up its a fun and informative way we can use Bitcoin. Given the academic research and perhaps market research potential of such a platform there may be interest from researchers and the like. All the best.

122 sats \ 3 replies \ @ca 13 Oct

Cool, what guarantees are there that the owner of bitcoinprediction.info doesn't simply run away with the money? and doesn't pay winners?

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

Well our main objective is to run a profitable business. If we steal people's money, then we lose trust, and therefore lose customers. We are incentivized to provide an honest service, else we will not grow. The long-term vision is a private and anonymous polymarket but with sats and ecash, not FTX.

We also looked into how to do non-custodial prediction markets with DLCs, and we have a draft of a whitepaper detailing how to do LMSR over DLCs. The only issue is currently we need a transfer mechanism (or swap) for those DLCs, which doesn't yet exist in the spec. We could try to raise more money to hire people to do that, or we could just go with ecash (which already has a thriving community of developers).

The difficulty with DLCs also is that everything needs to be on-chain. Lightning based DLCs are a mega pain in the ass, we talked to 10101 guys about it. If everything is on-chain then anytime there are high fees, it would be more costly for people to place bets. Lightning solves this, but Lightning also precludes other technologies due to the complexity of operating a Lightning based service in the first place.

We want to guarantee payout reliability, as even typos in the lightning address can result in payment failure. That's why we want to abstract shares as ecash tokens, and enable people to save their shares as a file (or emailed to them), which can be uploaded later.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 14 Oct

Just a suggestion for further research, this is another newer option that allows for the dlc contract to enforced on chain in an efficient manner but allows for buy-ins and pay-outs over lightning when everyone cooperates: https://github.com/conduition/dlctix

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

We actually did some research into creating an LMSR prediction market with DLCs earlier this year. The main problem with it is you need to code up a transfer mechanism for DLCs, and there are much higher liquidity requirements compared to ecash.

2249 sats \ 6 replies \ @DarthCoin 13 Oct

SUCH A BULLSHIT AND WASTE OF SATS! Betting is such a waste of money, espcially with sats and more especially for meaningless elections.

GUYS, STOP WASTING YOUR SATS ON NONSENSE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @SpaceHodler 15 Oct

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 20 Oct

True. I love clowns.

1050 sats \ 0 replies \ @CheezeGrater 14 Oct

Don't bet if you don't have a prediction, and don't tell me what to do with my sats.

Prediction markets are useful tools: #722513

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @BITC0IN 13 Oct

its also a trustmebro setup

people gonna get rugged

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

LOL, GUYS ~ use your sats for whateverthefuck you want to... That's what they are for!

Call it gambling if you want- or call it an incentive based, censorship resistant, decentralised prediction market...in fact potentially a defacto form of AI.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @sangekrypto 16 Oct

It seems like for those who have a lot of SAT, bro, if there aren't any, it's no problem, it's better not to compete, it's easy, bro.

212 sats \ 7 replies \ @DesertDave 13 Oct

Please don't use sats for this.

1 sat \ 6 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

Please don't tell me what to do with my sats. That is the most unbitcoin thing to do.

1 sat \ 2 replies \ @DesertDave 19 Oct

Personally I have been tempted to play poker with my sats. I have resisted the urge so far. I doubt it will go well for me even though 8 like to think I am a decent poker player

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

I hear you on that level but this prediction thing is far removed from online poker. With prediction the delay between placing the bet and a result is days weeks or months- as opposed to online poker where it is seconds or minutes.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 19 Oct

Yeah. Very different.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @DesertDave 19 Oct

I didn't tell you anything. Just sent a message out to the stacker ether. Please do what you wish. 💚

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @OneOneSeven 19 Oct

Use Cowboy Credits instead ;)

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 19 Oct

And get sats returned! I'm in

82 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 13 Oct

Tested it out. Looks good. Made a few small bets.

909 sats \ 0 replies \ @023ad18700 14 Oct

I wanna gamble on the election so bad lol

131 sats \ 1 reply \ @SatsMate 18 Oct

My bet is on Trump, especially after last nights interview on Fox!

If america can't see through her veil of lies, we don't deserve our country anyways.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 20 Oct

Does America really get to decide you think?

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @ken 22 Oct

I placed my bets!

Well done, @HYPERBITCOINZATION! Cool idea.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @ContraMundum 14 Oct

This was very cool. I participated in a few bets! I love this idea!

163 sats \ 7 replies \ @Scroogey 13 Oct

A Trump Trade Arbitrage

11 sats \ 2 replies \ @tomlaies 16 Oct

The market inefficiency on all these new plattforms is insane

No, I'm not making a bet based on my opinion on the election. I make bets on arbitraging the differences between plattforms. The only reason I only do small 4 digit bets is because these plattforms are new and untested.

It's insane. You'd think Bitcoiners would be smarter on economics. But they aren't, they can't comprehend the difference between their own subjective opinion on candidates and objective differences in betting odds.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 16 Oct

This makes me very bullish. I like the way you think. More traders doing this would make for much better forecasting.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scroogey 17 Oct

A Failed Attempt at Market Manipulation

11 sats \ 3 replies \ @south_korea_ln 14 Oct

It'd be nice to have Matt Levine pieces posted here to SN. I like his style, but only read him occasionally as I just forget to visit his column.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 2h

same! I read him pretty religiously.

He had a good take about the differences across prediction platforms

I wrote yesterday about an apparent arbitrage in US presidential election prediction markets: Donald Trump contracts on Polymarket trade at about a 53% chance of him winning the election, while they trade on other prediction markets at more like a 49% chance.[2] If you can buy Trump at 49 elsewhere and sell him at 53 on Polymarket, you can make a quick 4-point profit. I did not take this too seriously, and you shouldn’t either. I assumed that it probably wasn’t a feasible arbitrage: “I am sure there are some fees that I am not accounting for,” I wrote, “and I don’t know how good liquidity is on any of these places.” Also Polymarket is in theory off-limits to US investors. Those sorts of things — trading costs, liquidity, capital constraints, etc. — are the normal explanations for differences in prices in different locations, “limits to arbitrage” that prevent people from selling the expensive contract on Polymarket and buying the cheap one on Kalshi or wherever. But the other natural reaction you might have to seeing the same contract trade at different prices in different locations would be: Well,** are they the same contract?** What if “Donald Trump will win the election” is worth more — that is, has a higher probability — on Polymarket than it does elsewhere? That seems implausible: There is only one presidential election, and Trump will either win it or he won’t. But that might not be exactly right. There is some history of epistemic uncertainty when Donald Trump loses elections. Different prediction markets might resolve that uncertainty in different ways.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-10/crypto-market-makers-made-some-markets

1 sat \ 1 reply \ @south_korea_ln 14 Oct

I've come to know whenever I get a single sat zap, I know who's likely been zapping me.

Living up to your nym :)

91 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scroogey 14 Oct

You got me, I can't escape my nature :)

11 sats \ 3 replies \ @Trump 14 Oct

Vote for me.

This is the biggest bet in American history.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @SpaceHodler 15 Oct

Trump is spamming me with his shitcoin via Satogram.

1 sat \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 14 Oct

Why would anyone in their right mind vote for a Putin proxy?

2 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

If you think Kamala will win, you can profit from that knowledge by betting here.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bee_Aye 14 Oct

very cool and fun :)

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 13 Oct

It’s def cool! If you want some ideas look no further that sports!

Baseball playoffs are going on maybe you can do will the Mets win the 2024 World Series

10 sats \ 4 replies \ @Jon_Hodl 13 Oct

Looks very cool.

I have been looking for an alternative to the centralized BetMoose

Who decides the outcomes of the bets and how?

75 sats \ 3 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

We currently decide the outcomes of the bets. so the oracle is the Bitcoin Prediction Market team. We're looking to decentralize this by using ecash mints to enable anyone to run their own prediction market, ask questions, and provide liquidity.

The issue with a fully decentralized p2p prediction market is then you can't use something like LMSR (or at least I currently don't know how you'd architect that kind of solution). The point of the prediction market is to centralize liquidity around a market maker, which can use those bets to forecast the future. If all the bets are p2p, then you can't gather that intelligence, which is a major drawback.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jon_Hodl 14 Oct

If all the bets are p2p, then you can't gather that intelligence, which is a major drawback.

I hear that. I look forward to watching you grow.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SwapMarket 16 Oct

The market-maker should ideally be a smart contract. The two Bitcoin sidechains to implement that are https://rootstock.io and https://blog.blockstream.com/simplicity-arrives-on-liquid-testnet/

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 16 Oct

When we get the traction and capital, we'd love to build on either of them. Just gotta get that traction and raise another round of funding first.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @MattAhlborg0 13 Oct

Well done, just made a bet!

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @7e6e393a56 13 Oct

If this is cool? This is magnificent 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jade001sand 23 Oct

Yeah it’s really cool I placed like $5 worth of sats to bet

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @south_korea_ln 23 Oct

This has to be the best use of a 130k sat boost... still showing on the front page after nearly 10 days :)

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 21 Oct

Incredibly well done. Would prefer not to have the LN address doxed on the list of bets, but other than that. Masterful UX sir.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 22 Oct

Thank you! We're working on a more anonymous version to enable private betting (+ selling of shares before event happens for more accurate forecasting) such that you don't reveal your lightning address to everyone.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @sangekrypto 18 Oct

Looks like it's worth a try, if everyone agrees, it's a good idea to show it here, so friends here can participate.

200 sats \ 5 replies \ @BlokchainB 13 Oct

Aww shewt @mega_dreamer Yall got come competition

76 sats \ 4 replies \ @mega_dreamer 15 Oct

We sure do :) The more the merrier. However, our prices and shares are more competitive and more predictable. LMSR > Parimutuel.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 15 Oct

LMSR is indeed a better forecasting tool than parimutuel auctions, but some foresight is required to have a good calibration of the b constant to match the expected liquidity.

121 sats \ 2 replies \ @mega_dreamer 17 Oct

Agreed, managing b is the most difficult task. We are learning the hard way after seeing so much liquidity being wasted in thinly traded markets(over liquidated). We came to a conclusion that having a foresight is very difficult for novel markets, and its easier to build a reactive liquidity management system based on market volume and frequency to maintain a good enough calibration.

BTW we've also dabbled with parimutuel and it still exists on our sports betting app(triible). But, for some reason people seem to be more gravitated towards fixed odds on Triible, not sure why, but my reasoning is that maybe people prefer predictable outcome as opposed to a chance of a windfall gain which is only possible in parimutuel. But again, that's my observation on Sports Betting. Prediction Markets are different beast altogether and the same may not hold true.

Looking forward to connecting with one of these days :)

171 sats \ 1 reply \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 17 Oct

This article gave me some inspiration with regards to LMSR and the cost of running the market.

Triible looks cool, censorship resistant betting could be a massive driver of Bitcoin adoption globally. I first bought Bitcoin in 2017 to gamble it away on Pokerstars (Fiat to Coinbase to Bitcoin to Zelle to Pokerstars). Seems like the product-market fit was already there, it's just about the UX and building out a network effect. I even played csgo poker, where I could deposit my csgo skins and gamble at super micro stakes (like 0.1c/0.2c). Bitcoin Lightning could be a perfect medium of exchange to enable that, but it's less about building product and more about getting it to market, and getting traction from paying customers.

Most definitely would love to chat, I'll be at Tabconf and Adopting Bitcoin later this year. You planning on going to any conferences?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @mega_dreamer 18 Oct

Thanks for sharing the article, very insightful. Liquidity Management itself has become a new full blown project for us.

No conferences fro me until the end of this year, happy to chat over zoom or something :)

31 sats \ 1 reply \ @MattAhlborg0 13 Oct

Made a bet and wanted to tell twitter about it, but you don't have twitter handle? Get on socials bro!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

We are on X and nostr: Bitcoin Prediction Market: https://x.com/BTCPredMrkt My own X: https://x.com/billyhongbeats

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 2h

@remindme in 2 days

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @PrinceOfEgypt 3 Nov

How do the on-chain predictions work? I made a prediction using an on-chain transaction and there is no address in the list. Will it be sent back to the address it came from?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 3 Nov

Yes that's how it should work.

Just in case could you send me an on-chain Bitcoin address? You can send it to hello @birkeland.sh if you're uncomfortable with sharing it publicly. We can manually input it there just in case there's a bug with our system.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @PrinceOfEgypt 3 Nov

bc1qygumsq0sl6kav49jpp7nnukkzqgwgym8ak3mx0

FYI the onchain transaction is 9f4badf3659d5cc962544890b9ff2f3789587a2c9c07e6e287ae7babec3f8acf (to make sure we’re talking about the same prediction)

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @PrinceOfEgypt 4 Nov

@HYPERBITCOINZATION I see you (or someone) fixed it, thanks!

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @SwapMarket 21 Oct

What happened with the Beirut Embassy topic? Did you just delete it without a trace?

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 21 Oct

It's back online now, co-founder was testing some stuff in the backend, accidentally unlisted the topic.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 21 Oct

Apologies, for some reason it became unlisted. It is still active though. I'm contacting my co-foudner right now. Here is the link if you are interested in the meantime.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SwapMarket 21 Oct

is there a cut-off time to bet?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 21 Oct

We're going to keep the markets online until we resolve them and make the payouts.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @newnym 20 Oct

@HYPERBITCOINZATION Is there a way to implement a Lightning address validation perhaps? I placed a bet but realized only to late that I made a typo entering my LN address. (typed @waletofsatohsi with a single "L").

0 sats \ 30 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

I cannot succeed in making payment from coinos.io wallet Do I need different LN wallet?

10 sats \ 27 replies \ @nym 19 Oct

I'm not having any problems. What problem are you having?

0 sats \ 20 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

eg- 'Failed to route payment, recipient may not be reachable. Try sending a smaller amount or increasing the max fee reserve. Send NZ$3.38 ⚡️3,000 to bitcoin-prediction-market Max routing fee ⚡️1500'

0 sats \ 19 replies \ @nym 19 Oct

I haven't seen that error yet.

0 sats \ 18 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

I've now had it about a dozen times.

0 sats \ 17 replies \ @nym 19 Oct

Mostly today or over time?

0 sats \ 16 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

All and only today as only today visited the site and tried to place prediction/s. None have succeeded.

0 sats \ 15 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 19 Oct

I just made a bet with walletofsatoshi and getalby... not sure why your wallet might be failing.... Are your channels misconfigured?

view replies

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

Thanks for your reply- the message I get mostly is 'Failed to route payment, recipient may not be reachable. Try sending a smaller amount or increasing the max fee reserve.' I try different amounts more and less and increasing the max routing fee but it never goes through.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @anon 19 Oct

I just made a payment now

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @nym 19 Oct

Glad it finally worked. They’ve had some downtime the last week. Don’t keep large sums on there.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

Anon might have success but I still cannot place predictions-

'Failed to route payment, recipient may not be reachable. Try sending a smaller amount or increasing the max fee reserve. Send NZ$3.38 ⚡️3,000 to bitcoin-prediction-market Max routing fee ⚡️1500'

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 19 Oct

Not sure what could be the problem, our node is online and we have channels with inbound liquidity. Let me look into this deeper.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

Thanks- I have contacted coinos.io support too to ask if they can help. Have not heard back yet. BTW I just made a small test payment to another unrelated LN address from my coinos.io wallet - there was no problem at all.

Just tryed Bitcoinpredict payment again, still failure to process payment....new massage from wallet on failure- ERR Error running script (call to f_71cdd48ae74afa853d7e5040b5981ea5b94014de): @user_script:12: user_script:12: bad argument #1 to 'decode' (string expected, got boolean)

And trying again I get- 'Failed to route payment, recipient may not be reachable. Try sending a smaller amount or increasing the max fee reserve.' (for a prediction bet of 2100sats)

reply on another page

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 19 Oct

So our node is online, channels have sufficient inbound/outbound liquidity, and other wallets work. Many times lightning payments fail because of pathfinding issues between the nodes.

Your node might be struggling to find a route because of the decentralization of the Lightning network. As the network becomes more decentralized, payments become harder to process simply because the native pathfinding algorithm sucks.

I can look into opening some direct channels with coinos.io wallet, maybe that can help.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Oct

That would be great - thanks! I will try again tomorrow.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @PrinceOfEgypt 18 Oct

I'm looking at the bets and I see a typo in my lightning address (.cim instead of .com) on 2 of my bets. is there any way to fix that?

6 sats \ 1 reply \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 19 Oct

We just fixed it

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @PrinceOfEgypt 19 Oct

Thank you!

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SwapMarket 18 Oct

Hi, do you want to add deadlines for the last bets?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 18 Oct

Sure, we're thinking of tracking with polymarket at the moment. Once overwhelming and obvious consensus is reached, we will release the payouts. I anticipate there might be some conflict after the results are released, as regardless of which party wins, the other will dispute it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @4rge 18 Oct

I love you bet the USA loses

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @ca 18 Oct

Lost the status page, but it would be cool to see the total invested in each prediction, like you could before (both in sats and as USD, otherwise I need to keep googling for the converter)

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 18 Oct

If you click on the title of the post then you can see all of the bets. Same goes for the other markets as well.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ca 18 Oct

You could see the total volume previously.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @c222ecdcb4 17 Oct

everyone loses

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @SwapMarket 16 Oct

What are the formulae to calculate the odds and the potential return %?

10 sats \ 4 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 16 Oct

We're running a parimutuel market setup at the moment (winners split the losers money in proportion to how much they bet), but we want to move towards a modified version of LMSR. LMSR is a better forecasting tool, as long as you set the liquidity parameters correctly.

When a user bets we basically calculate how much their proportion of the winnings are if they won without any changes to the liquidity. So like

odds = (sats bet yes)/(sats bet yes + sats bet no) potential return = (your sats bet yes)/(total sats bet on yes) * (total sats bet on yes + no) or (your sats bet no)/(total sats bet on no) * (total sats bet on yes + no)

It's not the best system, LMSR is better, but it's good enough for a short-term auction (akin to horse racing).

The reason we want to transition to an ecash system rather than just custodial lightning is because that would enable people to sell their shares before market close (currently we cannot facilitate that with just Lightning payment & address). Then people could bet -> receive ecash tokens (representing shares) -> download or save those ecash tokens. Then whenever they want to sell or redeem the value of their shares, they can upload those tokens and enter in a receive address (lightning or on-chain), and then the market maker could send sats to them.

Another reason we're going for ecash is because it is effectively an authentication mechanism for people without needing to give an email or npub or signing up at all. We'd much rather avoid the UX of signing up to place a bet, and rather enable anyone to be anonymously, as long as they have access to a receive address in the future. Then we could list the bets with just bet amount and position, and we don't even need to reveal the lightning addresses while keeping everything publicly auditable.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @SwapMarket 16 Oct

Do you not deduct any fees?

It's just weird that odds for Trump and Kamala add up to 108%. But it does not mean that betting on all outcomes will make a profit for this guy:

Did you remove the link to the stats?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 16 Oct

Stats are listed below the topics. Click on the title of the topic to go there. We thought it would be better to show all the stats below the topics, rather than on a separate page.

We show the bets placed, but the fees are deducted when we send the payouts (1% fee at the moment). The total odds add up to 108% because it is basically

Odds_total = Odds_Trump + Odds_Kamala = Y_T/(Y_T+N_T) + Y_K/(Y_K + N_K).

Both markets are independent (betting on Trump does not change Kamala's odds, it only changes Trump's odds), so they are not necessarily supposed to add up to 100%. For a clever user like yourself there's an arbitrage opportunity there to balance the odds. Few people have spotted that so far.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 16 Oct

from ChatGPT:

How Arbitrage Works: For arbitrage to exist in a betting market, the combined implied probabilities of all outcomes must be less than 100%, allowing you to bet on both outcomes and lock in a profit regardless of who wins.

For example, if Trump were at 60% and Kamala were at 35%, you would have a combined 95% probability (less than 100%), and you could profit by betting on both sides. However, in your case, the total is over 100%, so no arbitrage is present.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 16 Oct

deleted by author

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @023ad18700 15 Oct

20k sats on trump let go

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 15 Oct

Currently stands at 7777 zaps, which is apropo for a post on betting.

Did someone intentionally freeze it at 7777, or is this just coincidence?

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @mega_dreamer 15 Oct

Congrats on the launch!!! Would love to chat how you're using ecash.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 15 Oct

Thanks, yeah would love to chat. Basic idea we're going for is to use ecash tokens as IOU receipts representing shares in the event, thereby enabling buying & selling of shares via variants of LMSR.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @mega_dreamer 17 Oct

BTW I run Predyx, that make us competitor :)

Jokes apart, yes, I've gone through the same pain as you've gone through. Tried to implement LMSR with DLCs but failed. I love the idea of ecash being a bearer token, it solves a lot of usability problems. Can we jump on quick 30 min call next week? Would love to get to know you and learn about ecash.

I've also been tinkering with Taproot Assets to issue market shares and backing up the shares with equivalent amt of sats on PSBTs, but again that locks up the liquidity and on-chain tx may not be financially viable for micro bets.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 17 Oct

Any good idea should have some competition, and right now polymarket is the big one to compete with. Similar to crypto exchanges, there's room for 10-20 multi-billion dollar prediction markets by 2030.

Next week I'll be a Tabconf, might be busy, maybe in 2-3 weeks I'll be more free.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @mega_dreamer 18 Oct

Agreed! Poly and USDC is our biggest competition.

Sure lets talk in few weeks :)

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bee_Aye 15 Oct

i made a few bets but dont see my ln address i input in the status, should it be there?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 15 Oct

Yeah it should be, what's your lightning address?

0 sats \ 9 replies \ @SwapMarket 14 Oct

I have a better suggestion: use the new and powerful Liquid scripting to turn your market into a smart contract. So that everything is transparent and trustless (well, almost: you trust the Liquid Federation)! Ecash requires trust in anonymous entities, which is a no go for me.

0 sats \ 8 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

I'll take a look into it. I talked to Adam Back in Tokyo and he told me about the limit order book and token functionality on Liquid. I think it would be a solid foundation, but I'm not sure if there is an order of magnitude improvement in terms of UX over Lightning payments to make bets or send rewards and ecash tokens as shares.

In essence, the trader is always trading with a market maker, not p2p. The market maker must use LMSR (or some variant) to determine accurate forecasting of the event via the share price. So regardless, you'd still be trading with the LMSR market maker, regardless if it is on the Liquid sidechain or the ecash mint (which means you'd still be trading with us). You'd still need to trust the smart contract, that it operates properly, as designed. Even open source smart contracts can have bugs that hackers can exploit. Regardless of what product you have, there are still vulnerabilities to audit and be aware of.

The reason we use ecash, rather than authenticating with a lightning wallet, or on-chain Bitcoin addresses, is because ecash enables you to download and save your shares anonymously, and it's pretty quick to build compared to DLCs or Liquid. Investing in the R&D effort before we raise extra funds or have significant traction seems like a waste of time, though it might be good later down the line to invest in that kind of infra.

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @SwapMarket 14 Oct

This is about transparency, not efficiency. Your site is a black box that can rug pull us any moment. Boltz is a market maker, but is trustless if you host the frontend yourself or use our SwapMarket. Smart contracts can create DEXes, but Ethereum sucks. The Bitcoin alternative to create smart contracts is currently Rootstock or Stacks. Liquid Federation solution promises to be more robust and trustworthy blockchain.

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 15 Oct

Yeah and if we use Liquid smart contracts then SwapMarket could benefit. I understand more projects using alternative platforms means more potential revenue for y'all, but we need to prioritize the ability to get product to market in a reasonable amount of time. Once it's easier for us to build (either lower technical requirements, or we have more capital and time) then it would make sense for us to do that.

We care about building features that the vast majority of users really care about, not trying to win the virtue signal Bitcoiner purity test.

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @SwapMarket 15 Oct

Oh, I did not even think about that. SwapMarket is a non-profit hobby project to benefit Bitcoin. Swap providers compete for client flows.

At least, publish your source code. Your node is small and young, pay-outs are not transparent. Too many red flags.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 15 Oct

https://www.bitcoinprediction.market/post/1

All transactions are public and fully auditable. Payouts are fully transparent: the winners split the losers sats. You can do the calculations yourself, or you could be lazy and push FUD by being a hater. If you don't want to use it, then don't use it, we're not forcing you.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @SwapMarket 15 Oct

I did place my bets, to test it out. My goal is to make your site better, not to spread FUD. By the way, there is a typo in "Total Bets: 3284581 stats".

I don't like that you show everyone's bets with full lightning addresses. Better mask them for privacy with something like this: y...7 @walletofsatoshi.com

There were no payouts yet, so blaming me to be lazy is unfair. I will do the calculations after the elections, don't worry.

However, I already noticed a problem with Who will win the US election? stats. I cannot find my bet placed yesterday:

$ bos pay --max-fee 100 lnbc100u1pns6gj8pp552yfs6ulv7p93ncf3k0zere4l0y2cg3y7kq9vhhs8f04u7e67mrsdzjgfjhgw3qxycrqvpsypekzarnyphkugzhdphjqamfd3kzqamfdcs8g6r9yp24xgr9d3jkxarfdahr7gzwfucqzzsxqyz5vqsp5dsvd99244cqyk2kx6kwvmlr52fvkkada3cz8v2rnjfszf9p7lzdq9p4gqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqpqysgqptcf8azyalg8s2xv7xz5vppgtgy8mnu7hds9dwngrs443p8f6dx5unllv20atfyqfekhkzhtpkscevuzjr2fpdpn64ys0uzcn27w49sps8lvta

description: Bet: 10000 sats on Who will win the US election? NO
destination: 02d85514f52477d0d664ef6ba18c19fd9a4e243bb88095bf12054db7dc5f67a901
expires:     in a day
id:          a288986b9f678258cf098d9e2c8f35fbc8ac2224f580565ef03a5f5e7b3af6c7
tokens:      10000

fee:        3
id:         a288986b9f678258cf098d9e2c8f35fbc8ac2224f580565ef03a5f5e7b3af6c7
latency_ms: 59322
paid:       10003
preimage:   4aea4d3c03146d1bce01d967fbe9458527bbea63156a92178dd34f93af41dd98

Same problem with Popular Vote Winner 2024:

$ bos pay --max-fee 100 lnbc100u1pns6gnqpp56n0xxz574l3vjg9qkk3hkex6mfw26dd38kt8kr8nqrre63ptftjqdz2gfjhgw3qxycrqvpsypekzarnyphkugzsdac82mrpwgs9vmm5v5s9w6twdejhygpjxqerggzwfucqzzsxqyz5vqsp56k8yc2fu02fukj5appnd0m030rkvg3twm6w603grlxkyczfz4g7q9p4gqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqpqysgqcxuevghts33m6j77kymg6l6e5pqp0wtsn8n79zusx5fwjxawzjej9x0vunmww7rw3jqha6l0feu6k5cq0xkchjydc3758w97y3rky5cq255yv7

description: Bet: 10000 sats on Popular Vote Winner 2024 NO
destination: 02d85514f52477d0d664ef6ba18c19fd9a4e243bb88095bf12054db7dc5f67a901
expires:     in a day
id:          d4de630a9eafe2c920a0b5a37b64dada5cad35b13d967b0cf300c79d442b4ae4
tokens:      10000

fee:        3
id:         d4de630a9eafe2c920a0b5a37b64dada5cad35b13d967b0cf300c79d442b4ae4
latency_ms: 3357
paid:       10003
preimage:   9875d0273c1af107a027c83c3cadf4687dc993d98286974382e7a55980a81133

I did find my bet on New York Presidential Election Winner 2024, so that worked.

Please explain the first two problems and correct them.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 15 Oct

Ok fair enough, I can see you're very knowledgable and providing constructive feedback. I apologize for the bug there. It seems as if your payment coincided right when my co-founder was deploying an updated backend. The pending payment was recorded, but it seems like the payment confirmation was not. The table we show is only displaying confirmed payments, and since there was a backend deployment interrupting that process, once the pending payment got confirmed it didn't get successfully recorded. We've now listed your bets on the status page, hopefully we won't run into the same error again.

We're working on fixing that bug so any future backend deployments won't run into the same issue. Thank you for bringing that up.

Our objective has been to figure out how to create a long-term prediction market on Bitcoin with the best security and UX. Of course custodial isn't the ideal or optimal way, but it would be foolish of us to spend months developing product when we're uncertain of the actual market demand (been there, done that, it's not worth it).

I was doing some research into how to do non-custodial prediction markets with DLCs. I can see that it is possible, it just requires much more capital, time, and energy to build. Same goes for building on Liquid—we are in a crunch time period and need to fundraise soon, so we just don't have the time or resources at the moment to commit to building a super sophisticated product, just an MVP. In an ideal world we could raise a shitload of money from VCs and hire some wizard cypherpunk devs, but alas we are only a team of two figuring it out as we go along.

I really do appreciate your feedback.

view replies

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satoshi__Nakamoto 14 Oct

I am going to bet for trumo

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @HODLR 14 Oct

@HYPERBITCOINZATION why is this not posted on ~lightning?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

I'm not familiar with the territories these days, not on stacker news very often. I suppose that would be a more fitting territory to post on.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @HODLR 14 Oct

Ok make sense. Thanks for your feedback. There's definitely a visibility/discoverability issue for territories! Especially for new stackers

@k00b @ek

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 14 Oct

Yep, it’s up on our list :)

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @TheMorningStar 13 Oct

The UI is cool! Haven't put any bets yet but will do if you can add some for football or cricket.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

Tell me what topics you'd love to bet on, and we'll put them up!

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @tenshi 14 Oct

nfl football

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @DawnoftheDead 13 Oct

as a rule of thumb any project or product that has bitcoin in the name will fail

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 13 Oct

I can think of one major exception, dating back to 2009.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @hasherstacker 13 Oct

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 13 Oct

Please do tell

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Eurocriptos 17 Oct freebie

exact

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @699b8eefd0 14 Oct freebie

It's interesting

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @87868f29e8 13 Oct freebie

whooa

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @rana3prasad 20 Oct outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @rana3prasad 20 Oct outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @rana3prasad 20 Oct outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @rana3prasad 20 Oct outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 14 Oct

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jon_Hodl 14 Oct

deleted by author