ProphetX Wants Traders to Bet on How Much Polymarket US, Rothera and DKeX Trade

ProphetX desires to let individuals wager on how a lot buying and selling occurs on different prediction markets.

In three self-certification submissions this month, the trade proposed binary contracts tied to November event-contract quantity at Polymarket US, Rothera and DKeX. 

Instead of predicting an election or a sport, merchants would take a place on whether or not these exchanges clear specified month-to-month quantity thresholds.

It is a brand new layer of hypothesis on the trade itself. But the filings are significantly extra exact than “betting on how a lot can be wager.”

They measure reported notional buying and selling quantity, not buyer deposits, trade income or the money merchants really spend.

Three exchanges, three thresholds

Each submitting covers one particular contract, not an unrestricted template for brand spanking new markets.

A complete precisely equal to the edge resolves to “No.” The qualifying quantity should exceed it.

All three contracts are totally collateralized, have a $1 settlement worth for the profitable aspect and commerce in one-cent increments between 1 cent and 99 cents. Each lists a position-accountability stage of 25,000 contracts per participant per strike.

The submissions say the contracts could also be listed no sooner than one enterprise day after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission receives them, and no later than Nov. 30. They are self-certifications, not bulletins of affirmative CFTC approval or proof that buying and selling has begun. 

ProphetX additionally mentioned not one of the referenced exchanges or their associates have endorsed the contracts or are a celebration to them.

What the quantity really measures

ProphetX will calculate quantity by multiplying the reported variety of occasion contracts traded by their notional worth. That worth defaults to $1 per contract except the supply identifies a special quantity.

For instance, 1 million trades in $1-notional contracts would contribute $1 million to the reference complete whatever the costs at which these contracts modified palms. The determine measures buying and selling turnover, not essentially $1 million of recent buyer cash.

The venue boundaries are equally essential. The Polymarket contract explicitly excludes the separate non-U.S. platform. The DKeX contract excludes exercise on different exchanges, even when DraftKings or an affiliate makes these contracts out there to its clients.

Rothera has a further counting element: It experiences one contract for every matched pair of YES and NO positions, slightly than one for all sides. ProphetX will undertake that conference with out doubling or in any other case adjusting the quantity. It additionally won’t add Rothera’s individually reported block-volume determine except that exercise is already included in the primary quantity area.

Those distinctions might resolve the payout. A headline about an organization’s general exercise just isn’t essentially the quantity these contracts will settle towards.

Settlement relies upon on revealed information

The main sources are the exchanges’ personal public every day quantity experiences. ProphetX will use specified trade-level data or historic information as backups, adopted by narrowly outlined public bulletins if crucial. Rounded figures, partial totals or figures reported on the unsuitable foundation won’t qualify.

Polymarket US and DKeX use the November calendar month in Eastern Time. Rothera makes use of classes bearing November commerce dates, which start at 4 p.m. Central Time on October 31 and finish at 3:59:59 p.m. Central Time on November 30. ProphetX’s Rothera contract closes when that ultimate session ends.

For all three, ProphetX will decide the reference complete at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the second enterprise day after the reference interval ends. Corrections revealed earlier than that cutoff rely. 

Later restatements don’t change the end result or set off a brand new settlement.

The filings additionally acknowledge that abstract experiences and trade-level backups might differ as a result of every day experiences exclude switch and workplace trades. Those aren’t interchangeable sources with out penalties, significantly if a discrepancy places the entire on reverse sides of a threshold.

If usable information disappears and the end result can’t be decided, the phrases present for voiding the contract and returning collateral. ProphetX says it’ll publish the ultimate reference quantity and supporting settlement info.

Guardrails towards transferring the quantity

The apparent concern is that somebody buying and selling a quantity contract might additionally generate quantity on the referenced trade.

ProphetX expressly prohibits transactions undertaken to push the reference complete above, or maintain it beneath, the edge, or in any other case have an effect on the contract’s worth or settlement. It additionally bars related trade personnel, individuals holding materials nonpublic details about quantity or reporting, and specified household and family members.

DKeX’s restrictions go additional by explicitly overlaying individuals with confidential details about anticipated order circulation obtained by market-making, liquidity, routing or distribution preparations. The submitting notes that DKeX’s order circulation is concentrated by an affiliated distributor.

These restrictions deal with who can commerce and what they’ll do. They don’t flip settlement into an impartial audit of the reference trade. ProphetX says it’ll use the revealed figures with out discretionary changes or exclusions based mostly on counterparties, contract classes or buying and selling protocols.

That is the central pressure: The calculation is designed to be mechanical, whereas enforcement should deal with makes an attempt to manipulate the exercise feeding it.

A market on the market

ProphetX mentioned it intends to use every contract as the inspiration for a subsequent venue-specific sequence with totally different thresholds and months. That would require additional certification, as these filings alone don’t authorize each attainable variation.

For merchants, the attraction is simple. They let merchants specific a view on an trade’s exercise with out taking a place on each occasion it lists. It just isn’t a wager on that firm’s revenue or valuation, however on a fastidiously outlined measure of turnover.

Prediction markets already flip information into tradable outcomes. ProphetX’s proposal turns their very own progress story into one, and makes the nice print behind “quantity” a part of the wager.