文章探讨了Polymarket预测市场中，YES和NO选项价格并非简单反映事件发生概率，还可能隐含高利率贷款的现象。由于市场规则强制YES和NO价格总和为1美元，导致用户可以通过买入NO选项来变相提供贷款，而无需真正相信事件不会发生。文章提出，如果取消这一规则，YES和NO价格之和将能更准确地反映市场利率，而YES选项的单独价格将更真实地反映事件发生的概率。这种调整有助于更清晰地解读市场参与者的真实信念，并揭示市场隐含的利率信息。

💰 Polymarket市场中，YES和NO选项价格之和被强制设定为1美元，这使得NO选项实际上成为一种高息贷款工具，而非单纯的事件预测。

💡 即使投资者不认为某事件会发生（即对该事件的信心较低），他们也可能因为高利率回报而购买NO选项，这使得市场价格不能准确反映真实预测。

📊 通过取消YES和NO价格总和为1美元的规则，可以更清晰地分离出事件预测概率和市场隐含利率，YES选项价格将更准确地反映事件发生的可能性。

📈 调整规则后，YES和NO价格之和可以揭示市场中存在的利率水平，这有助于更深入地理解市场动态和参与者的行为。

Published on December 28, 2024 4:05 PM GMT

Consider the following argument made by Tim Babb:

So every (non-American) reader is forced to either bet against the market or concede that their credence is at least 16%.

However, there is an important 3rd possibility. Since the market cannot resolve before August, it could also imply that Polymarket has an extremely high interest rate!

Basically, betting against bird flu is a way to turn $0.84 now into $1 later. This is exactly what a loan is! So even if a reader does not want to take that bet, it could indicate their credence is less than 16%, but they do not want to give Polymarket that loan.

This interest rate isn't unrealistic. Payday loans (which exist) have a similar interest rate. Keep in mind that Polymarket is a cryptocurrency company.

How to fix it: don't force YES and NO to add to $1

But if the interest rate was so high, wouldn't that imply that the YES shares should also be lower? No! Because anyone can, at any time, combine a YES and NO into $1. So the people holding the YES shares could just be predicting a sell-off of the NO shares, which would let them collect $1 immediately. In particular, this rule forces the YES and NO to always add to $1.

If we removed this rule, we could still estimate the odds as (Yes Price):(No Price). In addition, we could get insight on the interest based on (Yes Price) + (No Price) (since anyone holding a YES and a NO is just loaning $1 to Polymarket).

In particular, if the price was still $0.16 for YES shares after this change, we could honestly conclude the credence should be at least 16%, since the only way it payouts is if the event happens (not just if there is a sell-off of the NO shares). If the interest rate is quite high, we could even conclude the credence is higher!

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