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Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#11

Post by Jerrrry »

JonathanBeuys wrote: post #4

Wouldn't such an exchange be a good use case for a smart contract? It would make it very transparent, if the exchange is honest. As a history of all bids, payouts and judgments would be recorded on a blockchain. It probably also would do away with the KYC, so everybody could participate. And nobody would have to give away their private data. Thinking about it ... if the smart contract would let users post new bets as…

It actually is ideal, given trusted API/Oracles, a timeout period to ensure mis-published data is corrected promptly, and a few other non-obvious gotchas.

You could even have trusted middle-men that collect a Fee iff ambiguity is discovered and an appeal is wagered against the escrow.

I'm sure it exists and got rugpulled already.

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#12

Post by makestuff »

So lets say I think inflation is going to continue to go down and return to 2% by 2023. At the same time my shares of SPY and QQQ are continuing to go down due to increasing rates.

Is the point of this platform to serve as a hedge against other asset classes or is this supposed to be thought of as a completely separate asset class and not as a hedge against other investments?

I see the gambling aspect of it of just betting on outcomes, and that is interesting to me; however, I am curious how your team thinks about it.

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#13

Post by gus_massa »

Who decides the outcome of each event? The Kalshi team?

For example en the Moon landing example, I guess NASA will make press release, but it looks impossible to automate reading it and deciding. (What if the starship colides with the Moon? What if they can't return? What if it explodes 5 seconds after landing? What if it's a joint NASA+ESA project?)

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#14

Post by JonathanBeuys »

Jerrrry wrote: post #11
JonathanBeuys wrote: post #4

Wouldn't such an exchange be a good use case for a smart contract? It would make it very transparent, if the exchange is honest. As a history of all bids, payouts and judgments would be recorded on a blockchain. It probably also would do away with the KYC, so everybody could participate. And nobody would have to give away their private data. Thinking about it ... if the smart contract would let users post new bets as…

It actually is ideal, given trusted API/Oracles, a timeout period to ensure mis-published data is corrected promptly, and a few other non-obvious gotchas. You could even have trusted middle-men that collect a Fee iff ambiguity is discovered and an appeal is wagered against the escrow. I'm sure it exists and got rugpulled already.

If it is set up so that the users can put in bets and appoint judges, then it can't ever be rugpulled. Individual judges could turn hostile. But if the judges get paid for their work, a great track record might be worth more than any rugpull.

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#16

Post by llamaimperative »

JonathanBeuys wrote: post #4

Wouldn't such an exchange be a good use case for a smart contract? It would make it very transparent, if the exchange is honest. As a history of all bids, payouts and judgments would be recorded on a blockchain. It probably also would do away with the KYC, so everybody could participate. And nobody would have to give away their private data. Thinking about it ... if the smart contract would let users post new bets as…

Such a thing exists (Polymarket) and the whole setup has probably precluded many, many, many people from using it including myself. I got halfway through setup before giving up.

By contrast, I signed up for Kalshi and bought 3 contracts in the last 30 minutes.

Additionally, smart contracts don't actually solve the primary source of (unaccepted) risk: the oracle.

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#17

Post by melony »

brazed_blotch wrote: post #6
nickphx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Care to elaborate? Sounds ideal frankly.

The existing prediction markets have been regulated out of existence thanks to Kalshi.

See PredictIt, Polymarket, YC is doing a great job of fulfilling Thiel's vision of building monopolies. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-passage-of-polymar...

https://www.usbets.com/did-kalshi-kill-predictit/

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478370047735341056.html

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#19

Post by melony »

likecarter wrote: post #8

I'm a big user of https://predictit.org/ . But they are getting shutdown soon, so this is great. One thing I'd suggest: add pictures to the events. Makes it much easier for me to navigate and identify markets. I.e. a Biden picture next to a Biden event.

They are getting shutdown specifically because of Kalshi, see the links in my other comment for some context

Re: Launch HN: Kalshi (YC W19) – A regulated exchange for trading on events

#20

Post by tmansour »

gus_massa wrote: post #13

Who decides the outcome of each event? The Kalshi team? For example en the Moon landing example, I guess NASA will make press release, but it looks impossible to automate reading it and deciding. (What if the starship colides with the Moon? What if they can't return? What if it explodes 5 seconds after landing? What if it's a joint NASA+ESA project?)

The determination of an event will vary by contract, but are all external sources of validation, listed in the contract up front. For example, the moon landing resolves to yes if NASA announces by X date. GDP is resolved by Bureau of Economic Analysis, Inflation by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and so on.

Generally, event contracts are legal contracts technically. We have a team that spent a ton of time developing templates to incorporate all types of events (hard problem). Here's an example definition: https://kalshi-public-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/regulatory/ruleb...

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