TL;DR
Full Story
In case you’ve been dwelling beneath a rock, persons are going loopy on Polymarket proper now.
(Critically! Try the graph for Whole Worth Locked 
which is often an indicator of the extent of belief and utilization of a DeFi platform).
Polymarket lets anybody (outdoors of its restricted areas, of which the US is one) wager on the result of just about something beneath the solar.
For instance, as of this writing there’s been over $411M wager on the results of the US election alone!
Polymarket is exclusive in that it doesn’t have a market maker which is what ‘regular’ betting platforms have.
As a substitute, as a result of it’s decentralized, it makes use of an automatic market maker – i.e. an algorithmic system to resolve on pricing for every outcome, based mostly on the sum of money wager on all sides by actual punters.
And in a number of weeks they’re about to launch one thing even cooler/crazier:
Leveraged bets and derivatives-based bets.
With a leveraged wager, as an alternative betting on the result of X with your personal cash, it will imply you possibly can wager on an outcomes and get a number of occasions the return (or a number of occasions the loss) by solely placing a small quantity upfront.
For instance, you may put $10 upfront however do a 5x leveraged wager, returning you with $50 when you’re profitable – however requiring you to pay an extra $40 when you lose the wager.
Derivatives-based bets imply you possibly can wager on extra than simply the outcome.
For instance, betting on an election winner can be a ‘base market’ wager; in comparison with betting on the margin of victory (a spinoff wager).
It’s no straightforward process!
However, the absolutely onchain derivatives platform, D8X, is working with Polymarket to convey it to market.
Sounds thrilling for degens, and extremely harmful for skilled and non-professional gamblers alike.
The excellent news: no matter what Twitter says, you don’t need to partake in Polymarket.
