Resolution criteria

This market resolves to YES if, at any point before January 1, 2050 (00:00 UTC), prediction markets as both an active concept/mechanism and an accessible historical record effectively cease to exist. Specifically, this requires:

1. No publicly accessible prediction market or information market platforms (centralized or decentralized, real-money or play-money, e.g., Polymarket, Kalshi, Manifold, PredictIt, or any successors) remain operational anywhere globally; AND

2. The historical record, academic literature, and digital/physical documentation of prediction markets are destroyed, comprehensively erased, or rendered permanently inaccessible to the public and researchers (e.g., through civilizational collapse, extreme total censorship, or complete data loss).

This market resolves to NO if:

• On January 1, 2050, prediction markets still exist as a known concept, research topic, or historical phenomenon in accessible records/archives, even if active trading is heavily restricted or banned; or

• Any organized prediction market platform is operational and actively resolving questions at any point as of December 31, 2049.

Resolution will be verified via credible public reporting, internet archives, academic repositories, and prevailing consensus. If human civilization or the underlying verification infrastructure collapses such that resolution cannot be recorded, trades may be rendered void or left unresolved depending on platform mechanics.

Background

Prediction markets—exchange-traded markets created for the purpose of trading contracts whose payoffs are tied to future event outcomes—date back in organized form at least to 19th-century political betting pools in the United States and the formal establishment of the Iowa Electronic Markets in 1988. Over recent decades, the mechanism has expanded into corporate forecasting, academic research on collective intelligence, decentralized protocols, and regulated financial contract exchanges.

A scenario where prediction markets become completely defunct and their history is lost would generally require an unprecedented level of global coordinated prohibition, totalitarian information suppression, or an existential civilizational event that wipes out modern digital and printed information archives.