What’s the problem with predictions?

In its simplest form, a market is where services or goods (tangible or intangible) are bought and sold. In prediction markets, the product is a position on the outcome of an unknown future event. These are open markets where specific outcomes on real world events can be predicted via financial incentives, where market prices (or odds) indicate what the crowd thinks the probability of an outcome is.  From political outcomes to sports matches, weather events, or crypto prices, these positions are then used to create an aggregate prediction about what will happen, and this market value can then be used by others to make decisions about their own behavior. By incentivizing correct predictions with profit, prediction markets provide an incentive for people to gather information, evaluate it and make accurate forecasts. While 2/10 economists accurately predict inflation, 6/7 prediction markets accurately predict inflation. 

But while the power of people has been realized, it is rarely rewarded - at least not fairly. In traditional prediction markets, the house always wins because “the house” is a centralized entity that creates the rules, and the odds are stacked in their favor. Most of the value in the traditional prediction markets is captured by these centralized entities - whether casinos, bookmakers, investment banks, insurance companies, or exchanges. They are profit seekers and operate in accordance with their own tried and tested incentive structures. Participation in such markets can be unproductive and unprofitable for many: odds are pre-set against the participant, fees are high (and often hidden), and revenue is never shared.

Traditional prediction markets have already been disrupted by the emergence of online markets and bookmakers - enabling global access, greater convenience, and greater choice of odds. But this has only made these centralized entities more creative than ever in order to disguise their fee structures: odds and payouts are pre-calculated based on opaque proprietary logic designed to hide significant fees. Meanwhile, they make every effort to hold on to players’ funds, exposing users to significant counterparty risk. Ultimately, online bookmakers remain centralized entities driven by a mission to extract as much profit from participants as possible.

Prediction markets evolved out of the need to harness the wisdom of the crowd and are, by nature, powered by people – yet the centralization of most prediction markets goes against their very nature. FORE is here to change that. We exist to democratize, decentralize, and disrupt the predictions landscape as we know it: inverting the traditional prediction model to create sustainable value for all participants - not centralized entities. 

FORE Predict, FORE’s peer-to-peer predictions platform, harnesses the power of people to create, participate in, and validate any market on any real-world event. With FORE’s decentralized peer-to-peer technology, there is no house: users participate in markets against each other. By omitting the centralized middleman, there is no counterparty risk. Smart contracts that require no human intervention to fulfill the terms of the contract automatically determine market odds based on participation, securely control the pool of funds collected from participants by holding them in a decentralized escrow, and fairly and transparently distribute payouts upon market resolution.

On FORE Predict, fees are considerably lower because there is no house. As all transactions are recorded on the blockchain, the odds, payouts, and fee structure are completely transparent. A 5% maintenance fee is imposed on all market participation, of which half is redistributed to users for productive activity on the platform: users can be rewarded for cultivating new activity on the protocol by creating interesting and unique prediction markets or be rewarded for simply confirming the outcome of a market.  Meanwhile, just 1.5% of each market is taken as platform revenue, and the remaining 1% is burned and permanently removed from the supply.

Rather than using opaque logic to predetermine odds, odds on FORE Predict are determined by market participation. As such, markets transparently and fairly distribute payouts based on a participant’s holdings on the correct side of a market, allowing users to take advantage of market inefficiencies without compromising fairness or transparency.

And because FORE is powered by people, there’s no limit to what markets users can participate in – users can find or create unique markets on any real-world event that can’t be found elsewhere. 

‍Enter a limitless world of predictions spanning sports, current affairs, crypto, and more - limited only by your imagination. Sign up below to be notified about FORE token's listing on June 30th. While you’re waiting for access, check out our beginner’s guides here.

FORE Protocol, and FORE Predict, is powered by FORE token. FORE token will be available for trading on MEXC. FORE Predict's main net will be live following the completion of our security audit.