5 ms·

Mantic Markets – user-created prediction markets

44 points by larsiusprime 5y ago

jahooma 5y ago
Hi guys -- Mantic Markets co-founder here! Thanks for checking out our site! Most startup ideas are counter intuitive, but I appreciate the skeptical response here. The case for user created and resolved prediction markets is that it's simple, clear, and actually what traders want. For example, Zvi, who writes on Omicron and consults on prediction markets, recently blogged that the ideal way to resolve markets is to have Scott Alexander be the judge. https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/12/02/covid-prediction-markets-at-polymarket/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/12/02/covid-prediction-mar... Reality gets messy and judging outcomes ultimately comes down to a person's priors and expertise. We envision a world where experts that you trust run markets on topics that you trust them on. Right now, we have launched a play-money version of our site, and are exploring options such as moving into crypto. I will say that we love how easy and fun it is to participate with play-money, and believe that the results can be accurate. Imagine if your favorite Twitter and Substack personalities mixed in prediction markets with their regular tweets and posts to help their analysis or make a point. It's like a Twitter poll, but with a system for accountability that drives accuracy! We think a super-accessible site that makes accurate forecasting fun can lead to a profound impact on our knowledge and guide us to a better world. Thanks for reading! --James
thedudeabides5 5y ago
So like Forecast but you promise not to kill it like Facebook? Any plan to put real money behind the markets someday?
- JoshTriplett 5y ago
  > Any plan to put real money behind the markets someday? That seems much more an issue of regulation rather than capability.
inshadows 5y ago
> Will Mantic Markets have 5 paying users by Feb 01, 2022? > 25% chance
usrme 5y ago
This was also featured in Scott Alexander's Substack [1] earlier this week on Monday. The really bizarre part about this platform is that not only is the person posing the question responsible for judging the outcome, they also get a percentage of the trading volume as a fee [2]. To me, this makes it way too susceptible to influence and be too subjective to even take seriously when compared against platforms like Metaculus [3]. --- [1]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-dogs-in-wizard-hats https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-dogs-in-... (see "Mantic Everyday" section) [2]: https://mantic.markets/about https://mantic.markets/about (see "How are markets resolved?" section) [3]: https://www.metaculus.com/ https://www.metaculus.com/
- nabla9 5y ago
  Generally these open to everyone markets suffer from the garbage in garbage out problem (Good Judgment® Open, Metaculus,..) The low quality of the questions indicates that nobody spends any effort. The question may be receiving community input for a week and nobody has a clue. Metaculus admins especially are spamming (their own site) with confused low-effort questions. They have: 1. arbitrary ways to quantify outcome thresholds. No standardization across questions. 2. Writing questions using terms the author does not actually know or misunderstands. 3. Using some random news sources as resolution criteria. Even if they are generally reliable, it just reveals how the author really didn't get into the question. For example, war or conflict questions. A question may use some arbitrary number like 3 or 5 dead as a threshold for war. Maybe trying to figure out how subject matter experts are quantifying different conflict thresholds and what their reasoning was would be reasonable.
  - namenotrequired 5y ago
    Wait, are you saying metaculus admins are spamming their own site or their tiny competitor’s site?
    - nabla9 5y ago
      No. They are spamming their own site with low quality questions.
IAmGraydon 5y ago
So this is basically just wisdom of the crowd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd You need a large, diverse crowd for this to work, and there are still major problems with it and the way they’re implementing it. It also kind of beckons the question…did these guys just reinvent Quora?
Aliabid94 5y ago
Isn’t this just like https://kalshi.com/ https://kalshi.com/? But Kalshi decides true/false outcome as compared to the question poser on this platform.
- ProjectArcturis 5y ago
  Kalshi is also fully registered with the CFTC, and is US-legal and regulated.
alisonkisk 5y ago

44 points by larsiusprime 5y ago

Hi guys -- Mantic Markets co-founder here! Thanks for checking out our site! Most startup ideas are counter intuitive, but I appreciate the skeptical response here. The case for user created and resolved prediction markets is that it's simple, clear, and actually what traders want. For example, Zvi, who writes on Omicron and consults on prediction markets, recently blogged that the ideal way to resolve markets is to have Scott Alexander be the judge. https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/12/02/covid-prediction-markets-at-polymarket/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/12/02/covid-prediction-mar... Reality gets messy and judging outcomes ultimately comes down to a person's priors and expertise. We envision a world where experts that you trust run markets on topics that you trust them on. Right now, we have launched a play-money version of our site, and are exploring options such as moving into crypto. I will say that we love how easy and fun it is to participate with play-money, and believe that the results can be accurate. Imagine if your favorite Twitter and Substack personalities mixed in prediction markets with their regular tweets and posts to help their analysis or make a point. It's like a Twitter poll, but with a system for accountability that drives accuracy! We think a super-accessible site that makes accurate forecasting fun can lead to a profound impact on our knowledge and guide us to a better world. Thanks for reading! --James

thedudeabides5 5y ago

So like Forecast but you promise not to kill it like Facebook? Any plan to put real money behind the markets someday?

JoshTriplett 5y ago
> Any plan to put real money behind the markets someday? That seems much more an issue of regulation rather than capability.

inshadows 5y ago

> Will Mantic Markets have 5 paying users by Feb 01, 2022? > 25% chance

usrme 5y ago

This was also featured in Scott Alexander's Substack [1] earlier this week on Monday. The really bizarre part about this platform is that not only is the person posing the question responsible for judging the outcome, they also get a percentage of the trading volume as a fee [2]. To me, this makes it way too susceptible to influence and be too subjective to even take seriously when compared against platforms like Metaculus [3]. --- [1]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-dogs-in-wizard-hats https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-dogs-in-... (see "Mantic Everyday" section) [2]: https://mantic.markets/about https://mantic.markets/about (see "How are markets resolved?" section) [3]: https://www.metaculus.com/ https://www.metaculus.com/

nabla9 5y ago
Generally these open to everyone markets suffer from the garbage in garbage out problem (Good Judgment® Open, Metaculus,..) The low quality of the questions indicates that nobody spends any effort. The question may be receiving community input for a week and nobody has a clue. Metaculus admins especially are spamming (their own site) with confused low-effort questions. They have: 1. arbitrary ways to quantify outcome thresholds. No standardization across questions. 2. Writing questions using terms the author does not actually know or misunderstands. 3. Using some random news sources as resolution criteria. Even if they are generally reliable, it just reveals how the author really didn't get into the question. For example, war or conflict questions. A question may use some arbitrary number like 3 or 5 dead as a threshold for war. Maybe trying to figure out how subject matter experts are quantifying different conflict thresholds and what their reasoning was would be reasonable.
- namenotrequired 5y ago
  Wait, are you saying metaculus admins are spamming their own site or their tiny competitor’s site?
  - nabla9 5y ago
    No. They are spamming their own site with low quality questions.

IAmGraydon 5y ago

So this is basically just wisdom of the crowd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd You need a large, diverse crowd for this to work, and there are still major problems with it and the way they’re implementing it. It also kind of beckons the question…did these guys just reinvent Quora?

Aliabid94 5y ago

Isn’t this just like https://kalshi.com/ https://kalshi.com/? But Kalshi decides true/false outcome as compared to the question poser on this platform.

ProjectArcturis 5y ago
Kalshi is also fully registered with the CFTC, and is US-legal and regulated.

alisonkisk 5y ago