Trump and Harris Ethereum Tokens to Fuel Wintermute Election Forecast Market
Wintermute, an algorithmic trading firm, has introduced OutcomeMarket, a decentralized prediction market platform that will kick off with a focus on the 2024 U.S. presidential election, featuring tokens linked to candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
The platform, set to launch soon, enables users to engage directly in prediction markets using Ethereum (ETH) and its layer-2 scaling networks Base and Arbitrum, streamlining the process by eliminating the necessity to bridge assets between chains.
OutcomeMarket’s foundation relies on permissionless smart contracts, which power decentralized apps (dapps), allowing any trading venue to list tokens without enforcing minting or transaction fees.
Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy highlighted the platform’s goal of fostering a more accessible and efficient market by lowering entry barriers. The initial token offering will present TRUMP and HARRIS tokens, enabling users to vote on the candidates’ election performance while also utilizing the tokens in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications across various exchanges.
Chaos Labs’ Edge Proofs Oracle will be leveraged by the platform to ensure data integrity and reliability across chains. Several trading venues, such as Bebop, WOO X, and Backpack, have already committed to listing the OutcomeMarket tokens.
The blending of cryptocurrency speculation and political forecasting has seen an upsurge in popularity, with political meme coins and prediction markets gaining traction. In 2020, the FTX derivatives exchange launched similar prediction markets for the U.S. presidential election, which experienced substantial trading volume. However, FTX faced a collapse following fraud allegations.
Prediction markets like PredictIt and Polymarket have encountered regulatory scrutiny, with Polymarket paying a $1.4 million civil monetary penalty in 2022 to settle CFTC charges. Despite regulatory challenges, Polymarket has witnessed increased popularity and trading volume in 2024, primarily driven by interest in election betting pools.
