The prediction market is taking over crypto: What do new projects like Myriad mean

At the beginning of 2026, the crypto market is witnessing a pivotal capital shift. When Polymarket obtained full U.S. licensing and received a massive $2 billion investment from the NYSE parent company, everyone should have understood: the once-popular Meme craze is fading, and a calmer, more rational, financially-oriented era is emerging.

What does this shift mean? It signifies that speculators are moving from “who runs fastest” to “who sees most accurately,” that capital is shifting from chasing emotions to pricing truth, and that the crypto ecosystem is upgrading from consumer-grade applications to financial infrastructure. Prediction markets, once considered niche crypto toys, are evolving into core tools for global risk quantification and measuring public opinion consensus.

In this capital migration, BNB Chain’s prediction market projects have demonstrated unique ecological vitality. Projects like Opinion Labs, Predict.fun, Probable, 42, Bento are reshaping prediction market gameplay through innovative mechanisms. The emergence of projects like Myriad further indicates that this track has entered a mature stage of high differentiation and multi-dimensional competition.

The Deep Logic Behind Capital Shift: From Meme Decline to Truth Pricing

Why Meme is Losing Its Appeal

The turning point in market sentiment is often not a sharp crash but a collective indifference.

When Pump.fun lowers the token issuance threshold to nearly zero, supply begins to expand exponentially, but retail investors’ time, funds, and emotions only grow linearly. The inevitable result: hot topics become shorter-lived, holding becomes more painful. Tokens are permanent, but attention is fleeting. This structural contradiction ultimately leads to a fate—no matter how explosive a Meme is, it cannot escape a prolonged downward trend.

Just as traditional speculation faces fatigue, a seemingly “less刺激” (less刺激) new gameplay with higher clarity begins to attract capital. It is called prediction markets.

Why Prediction Markets Suddenly Explode

The Truth Dilemma in the Information Age

In an era of information explosion and fragmented news, media can deliver timely messages but cannot guarantee accuracy. Someone even used AI to forge a biography of CZ, with a complete cover and outline, successfully uploading it to platforms like Apple Books, ultimately炒至数百万美元的Meme市值 (driving Meme valuation to millions of dollars).

In Meme logic, “fast is everything.” By the time you verify the information, the price may have already collapsed. This craving for accurate information has laid the groundwork for the rise of prediction markets.

Prediction markets introduce a “Skin in the Game” mechanism, allowing participants to vote with real money, forcing the revelation of true expectations. The logic is simple: Talk is cheap, show me the money. When participants bet on Yes or No, the price fluctuations become real-time quantifications of the true probability of events.

Upgrading from “Speculating on Coins” to “Speculating on Events”

Prediction markets address three major pain points of Meme speculation:

First, a clear settlement window. Memes have no definitive end; only prolonged downward trends. Prediction markets, however, have explicit settlement dates for each event. When the event ends and funds are settled, there are always winners and losers. This allows speculative capital to focus within specific timeframes.

Second, speculators can achieve certain gains. In Meme, 99% of participants are losing money. In prediction markets, as long as you correctly predict the event’s outcome, you can earn settlement rewards. This fundamentally improves the survival probability of the speculative ecosystem.

Third, funds flow is highly concentrated. No longer plagued by infinite token dilution, attention is focused on a limited but important set of events. This concentration deepens liquidity and smooths trading.

This is not just a gameplay change but an upgrade in the dimension of speculation—you no longer need to be the fastest, only the most accurate.

Regulatory Breakthrough: Opening the Gates for Institutions

Polymarket’s success fundamentally stems from two key breakthroughs.

Product side, it downplays the “gambling” aspect and emphasizes information. During the 2024 US elections, CNN and Bloomberg cited its odds data. Compared to earlier projects like Augur, Polymarket optimized user experience—no obscure on-chain interactions, settled directly with USDC stablecoin, allowing Web2 users to enter seamlessly.

Regulatory side, Polymarket proactively reached a settlement with the US CFTC. This “fine” is essentially an “entry ticket” into Wall Street. In September and October 2024, Polymarket obtained full U.S. licensing and received a $2 billion investment from ICE, the NYSE parent company. This marks the official transition of prediction markets from “legal gray areas” to “transparent, compliant financial derivatives.”

Regulatory compliance has eliminated legal concerns for institutional capital. Prediction markets are rapidly shedding their “crypto niche toy” label, evolving into financial infrastructure for quantifying global risks on par with indices like S&P 500 and gold prices.

The Dilemma of Industry Leaders and the Breakthroughs of New Generations

Polymarket’s Success and Its Ceiling

Polymarket currently holds a leading position, but this status is both an achievement and a constraint.

Its success is built on a “high control, heavy operation” meticulous model—carefully curated markets, strict creation reviews, centralized management. While safe and reliable, this approach is highly inefficient. Like a fine handcrafted workshop, it can handle major events like US elections perfectly, but when facing more fragmented, high-frequency mass demands, it becomes too slow and heavy.

Operational pain points are also evident:

• Centralized review leads to niche markets: Market creation relies heavily on official screening, resulting in resource concentration in highly commercialized sectors. Topics of interest to Chinese-speaking users but niche are ignored due to lack of liquidity.
• Order book liquidity dilemma: New markets require sufficient liquidity; otherwise, small trades cause severe price swings, creating a negative cycle of “low liquidity → user exit → further shrinkage.”
• User experience lag: Front-end display and on-chain transactions have delays, causing a significant gap between the probability at order placement and actual execution, leading to high first-time user churn.
• Settlement delays: Relying on UMA oracle voting, controversial markets may take days or longer to settle, locking up funds for extended periods.
• Oracle scalability issues: When market numbers explode, human-driven decentralized arbitration mechanisms become overwhelmed.

Deeper risks include that when profit incentives grow large enough, participant motivation may shift from “measuring events” to “driving events.” The most notorious example is the 2024 WNBA “green柱状物事件” (green柱状物 incident): holders spent tens of dollars on tickets and props, throwing objects on the court to manipulate prediction payouts of thousands of dollars. At this point, the market is no longer a “truth-seeking machine” but a tool to legitimize manipulation.

Four Evolution Directions for the Next Generation of Projects

Recognizing these pain points, new projects are breaking through in four dimensions:

First, permissionless market creation

Lower the barriers to market creation, allowing anyone to initiate predictions on any event. Through algorithm-driven automatic liquidity mechanisms, niche cultural circles (like Chinese-specific markets), specialized technical topics, or vertical industries can quickly establish prediction events, achieving “everything can be priced.”

Second, leverage to enhance capital efficiency

Traditional prediction contracts are essentially full-margin spot trades. Introducing leverage allows users to stake minimal margins for outsized gains on major events (e.g., 10x leverage predicting Fed rate hikes). This attracts high-frequency speculators and enables institutions to hedge macro risks at lower costs. The key is that for “certain” markets with 90% win rate and 1.1x odds, leverage amplifies attractiveness, restoring liquidity to otherwise unprofitable predictions.

Third, vertical domain specialization

No longer pursuing “big and comprehensive,” but focusing on specific tracks. For example, Football fun targets sports, Limitless targets crypto volatility. Vertical platforms attract highly professional participants, preventing funds from dispersing across ineffective markets and creating deep order books in core areas.

Fourth, user experience and aggregator models

While giants like Coinbase and Jupiter have traffic, building prediction markets in-house is costly. The new aggregator model leverages traffic as a frontend, integrating underlying liquidity, allowing users to discover and trade prediction markets without switching platforms.

BNB Chain’s Prediction Market Ecosystem: Five Emerging Projects

BNB ecosystem’s attitude toward prediction markets differs markedly from other blockchains. While Solana is still transforming and Base focuses on creator economy, BNB, supported by Yzi Labs, has already formed a clear ecological betting signal. Interestingly, nearly all prediction market projects on BNB choose airdrops to reward the community, creating a unique ecological vitality.

Opinion Labs: Leader in Macro Prediction

Led by Yzi Labs, it completed a $5 million seed round supported by Echo, Animoca Ventures, Manifold Trading, Amber Group, and others. The project is growing rapidly, ranking among the top three prediction markets, with a total nominal trading volume exceeding $8.2 billion.

In a 88-page industry report by Dune, Opinion is rated as a “leading example in macro prediction markets.” For users interested in macro trading, DeFi, and event prediction, it is currently a relatively stable choice. Users can accumulate Points through market orders, limit orders, liquidity provision, or holdings, which will be linked to future token airdrops.

Predict.fun: DeFi-native Prediction Assets

This is a quite unique innovation—founded by Dingaling, former head of Binance Research and creator of PancakeSwap, it is a BNB Chain native DeFi prediction market.

The fundamental difference is that Predict.fun allows prediction positions to be used as DeFi assets. This means users’ prediction positions can be borrowed, leveraged, or used in other DeFi scenarios, greatly improving capital efficiency.

The project has snapshot addresses of active users from platforms like Meme trading on BNB Chain, Aster DEX, Polymarket, Limitless, Myriad. Users can check eligibility and unlock airdrops through deposits, invites, or completing specific trading volumes. On its first day, it achieved $10 million in trading volume.

Probable: Zero-Fee Democratic Prediction

A native on-chain prediction protocol incubated jointly by PancakeSwap and Yzi Labs, offering zero-fee predictions and supporting any tokens (automatically converted to USDT). Anyone can initiate new markets, secured by UMA oracles, focusing on events like sports and crypto price movements.

The project recently launched officially, supporting real-time events like NBA games. Users can earn points for participation.

42: Turning Events into Tradable Assets

This project employs a new Bonding Curve mechanism, transforming real-world event outcomes into liquid, tradable token assets. This design continuously produces high-volatility, high-liquidity, transparent, and settleable assets.

Founder Leozayaat emphasizes that 42 surpasses traditional prediction markets, functioning more like an “event asset issuance platform.” Its core mechanism is entirely different from any prediction market variant or launchpad, allowing users to buy and sell freely without liquidity concerns. It’s an elegant mechanistic innovation with the potential to further upgrade the entire ecosystem.

The mainnet mechanism has been tested and is planned to launch a new UI by the end of January.

Bento: User-Generated Prediction Market Portfolio

A project graduated from EASY S2 with support from Base, Bento’s core insight is: although prediction markets are truth engines, they face challenges like difficulty in discovery, lack of personalization, isolation, and limited returns.

Bento’s solution is to enable users to reorganize global prediction markets with user-generated markets, creating innovative market designs like challenges and tournaments. Similar to what Roblox has done for gaming—letting users build personalized experiences with Lego-like blocks, invite friends, and create micro-economies—Bento aims to do the same for prediction markets.

The core team includes co-founders Abhitejxyz and PratyakshInani, former co-founders of Filament, with five years of collaboration. The project is currently in Early Access testing, with plans to launch the mainnet in early January.

Infrastructure Innovation in Prediction Markets

Platform improvements alone are not enough; infrastructure development is equally critical. The BNB ecosystem has begun laying out the underlying support for prediction markets.

APRO Oracle: AI-Enhanced Data Infrastructure

An AI-augmented decentralized oracle platform focused on providing high-fidelity off-chain data for RWA, AI agents, prediction markets, and DeFi.

Graduated from EASY S1, supported by Polychain Capital, Franklin Templeton, ABCDE, and others, it has completed multiple funding rounds. The platform has verified over 77K data points and invoked over 78K AI oracles. Its token $AT is listed on Binance spot, with a market cap of $28 million and FDV of $122 million, ranking among the top in S1 projects.

Sora Oracle: Autonomous Oracle for Prediction Markets

A self-sovereign, decentralized oracle built on BNB Chain, focused on providing a true reality layer for prediction markets on real-world events. Developers can deploy production-grade prediction markets via TypeScript SDK + CLI with one click. The project is in early stages and continues to improve.

What the Emergence of New Projects like Myriad Signifies

The appearance of Myriad in the BNB prediction market ecosystem indicates that this track has evolved from “dominance by a single leader” to a “multi-dimensional differentiation” competitive landscape. This shift signifies three things:

First, the market is moving from concentration to decentralization. Different user needs are no longer monopolized by a single platform but are met by multiple specialized projects. Opinion serves macro traders, Predict.fun caters to DeFi funds, Probable appeals to zero-fee enthusiasts, 42 focuses on mechanism innovation, Bento on social experience, and Myriad represents deeper vertical specialization—marking market maturity.

Second, competition is shifting from “product” to “ecosystem.” Who can gather more high-quality traders, provide better liquidity, and integrate with more DeFi protocols will win ecosystem influence. Projects like Myriad, through interactions with other platforms, form not just competition but ecological collaboration.

Third, prediction markets are beginning to evolve from “trading products” to “societal infrastructure.” As markets become sufficiently diversified and deep, prediction markets will no longer be just a game for speculators but a foundational infrastructure for quantifying global risks and measuring public opinion.

Opportunities and Strategies for Retail Participants

For ordinary users, BNB prediction market projects are still in early stages. Participation mainly involves two categories:

Launched projects (accumulating Points):

1. Opinion Labs (recommended): Visit app.opinion.trade, connect your wallet, and use market orders, limit orders, liquidity provision, or holdings to accumulate Points. Weekly activity-based distribution, Points will be linked to future token airdrops.

2. Predict.fun (airdrop phase): Snapshot your trading activity on platforms like Polymarket, Opinion Labs, Aster, Limitless, Myriad. Achieve certain trading volumes to unlock airdrops.

3. Probable (zero-fee experience): Visit probable.markets for zero-fee prediction trading. No official points system yet, but many users participate with small amounts and are active in Discord, expecting future airdrops.

Unlaunched projects (sign-up waitlist):

4. 42 (beta testing): Currently in whitelist beta, with innovative mechanics. Use invite code BITEYE25 for early access.

5. Bento (Alpha Testnet): In Alpha testing, scheduled to launch mainnet in early January. Register at waitlist.bento.fun for a chance to win Bento Mystery Box.

The Endgame: From “Fat Protocol” to “Fat Application”

From Pump.fun to HyperLiquid, the crypto industry has transitioned from the “fat protocol” era of mass chain creation to the “fat application” era.

In the past, we obsessed over high-performance blockchains and complex L2 architectures, thinking that was true value. But these are merely infrastructure excess. The real value lies in who can carry real transaction demand.

Prediction markets are the ultimate form of this “fat application”—they do not generate information but provide the most precise pricing venue for fragmented global cognition. Polymarket is just the beginning of this transformation; the true explosion is still ahead.

The emergence of projects like Myriad signifies that prediction markets are moving from single-point innovation to ecological completeness. In the future, prediction markets will become an unchanging infrastructure for quantifying the world. Will you continue to gamble in the game of hot potato, or step into the truth market and use your cognition to price the future?

The answer lies in the moment you place your bet.