Hyper-Subjective Prediction Markets: Prediction markets today have shown us how powerful collective intelligence is, and have been able to forecast correctly almost everything from sports to politics. However, these markets are largely confined to fact-based events with clear, objective outcomes. Bad? Hell No! But, what if the next wave of innovation in prediction markets doesn't just cater to betting on facts, but on feelings (abstract things, sentiments)? There's the possibility of a huge market that wants to bet on subjective outcomes: 1. opinion-driven. 2. sentiment-based markets. Things that matter to specific communities. Fan debates, mood of CT, bullishness or bearishness, fear or greed, rumours, etc. Some examples include: "Who's more influential - Vitalik, CZ or Ansem?" "Will SEC articles mentioning crypto have positive sentiment or outlook" "Kaito vs Xeet, which one will have a more positive sentiment by the end of Q4?" "Will CT sentiment on $BTC be net positive or negative by Aug 31?" "Will BTC sentiment flip bullish after the FOMC meeting?" In simple words: markets on vibes. ---------- Resolving subjective/sentiment-based markets: This of course is a major concern for subjective and sentiment-based markets. Since oracles (UMA or Chainlink) can't objectively measure sentiments and group consensus/opinions, and also because human in the loop for subjective markets breeds bias and latency... My simple thesis is that this type of PMs creates a huge market for @Ritualfnd's Infernet as the best option for market resolution via verifiable AI computation done onchain. For example: A sentiment-based market is created by an influencer/streamer > "Will CT sentiment on $BTC be net positive or negative by Aug 31?" At the end of the market, Ritual fetches and analyses data from designated sources (Twitter's API), runs a sentiment/NLP model for analysis, classifies tweets and grade em, generates verifiable cryptographic proof, returns the result onchain, and finally resolves the market. Apart from Ritual's inference model for both sentiment-based and opinion markets, opinion-driven markets can also be resolved via public polls from trusted sources. ---------- Why does this matter: 1. Abstract PMs pose to be a great unlock for AI in prediction market — both usecases, model developers, research engineers, etc 2. They cater to communities and creators. If you’ve got clout, you can spin up markets around your audience’s opinions, memes, or vibes. 3. Hyper-degeneracy — the same way memecoins unlocked retail gambling and permissionless launching of tokens, vibe-markets could unlock the same and even more. 4. Markets like these won't require a full-blown CLOB-based market structure (central limit order book). They can be bootstrapped quickly, even socially. 5. New fee opportunities for platforms and more money to be made by users from the chaos. 6. Could be the reason privacy for prediction markets becomes a thing because opinion bets would have to be private to minimise manipulation. The whole vertical is just about expanding what we can bet on, other than just simple fact-based markets. And since AI is rapidly becoming a big deal in web3, it's only logical that we create new markets around its capabilities. Plus, Ritual's Infernet could be that foundational layer for new PMs where feelings, opinions, and even debates can be tradable assets. Win-Win! In conclusion, my aim for this is to point out what Ritual could do for PMs, the new vertical sentiment-based markets, and possible activations we'd see if it gains popularity. ---------- Spent quite some time coming up with this piece tho. No idea if it's possible or if it'll eventually become a thing, but definitely curious to know what some prediction bulls I know think of the sentiment-based vertical, and subjective PMs as a whole. @j0hnwang @NickPreszler @iatskar @sanlsrni @Schofield_ethh Thanks for reading!