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/

7797 sats \ 110k boost \ 75 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.

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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.

131 sats \ 1 reply \ @Golu 14 Oct

Impressive! Do you have sports bet?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14 Oct

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

30 sats \ 3 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 \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 13 Oct

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

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.

75 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.

21 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?

0 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.

2248 sats \ 3 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!

1029 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

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @BITC0IN 13 Oct

its also a trustmebro setup

people gonna get rugged

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @SpaceHodler 5h

211 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 13 Oct

Please don't use sats for this.

81 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 13 Oct

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

908 sats \ 0 replies \ @023ad18700 14 Oct

I wanna gamble on the election so bad lol

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @ContraMundum 14 Oct

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

110 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scroogey 13 Oct

A Trump Trade Arbitrage

1 sat \ 2 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 \ 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.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SpaceHodler 4h

Trump is spamming me with his shitcoin via Satogram.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 14 Oct

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

1 sat \ 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 \ 2 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 \ 1 reply \ @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.

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 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

200 sats \ 2 replies \ @BlokchainB 13 Oct

Aww shewt @mega_dreamer Yall got come competition

76 sats \ 1 reply \ @mega_dreamer 18h

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

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14h

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.

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 \ @023ad18700 7h

20k sats on trump let go

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 7h

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 \ 1 reply \ @mega_dreamer 17h

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

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 14h

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 \ 1 reply \ @Bee_Aye 19h

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 14h

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

0 sats \ 8 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 \ 7 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 \ 6 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 \ 5 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 23h

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 \ 4 replies \ @SwapMarket 12h

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 \ 3 replies \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 11h

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 \ 2 replies \ @SwapMarket 11h

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 \ 1 reply \ @HYPERBITCOINZATION OP 9h

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.

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