Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

FAQ Site Map

General

How to Contact Insight Prediction?

First, you can email support at support@insightprediction.com. You can also visit our Discord and ask questions or leave feedback there.

What is Insight Prediction?

Insight Prediction is a prediction market platform which enables users to trade on future events including elections, sports, and Covid-19 policy. Prediction markets have been proven to be one of the best ways of forecasting future events. When users trade on events such as “Covid-19 case counts” publicly useful information is aggregated and priced. We are dedicated to building the best possible platform to improve forecasting and empower traders.

How Does Insight Prediction Work?

Users deposit funds in the form of cryptocurrency, stablecoins, which we then immediately convert to dollars at no cost to the users. Users can then trade on various events in dollars. We'll have some markets denominated in other currencies. Insight Prediction markets are in the form of binary option contracts. These contracts are each based around a “Yes” or “No” question about a future event (example: Will Trump win the election?). Each “Yes” or “No” contract has a price between .1 cents and 99.9 cents and an end date when the market is resolved. When the end date is reached, the outcome of a market is determined as either “Yes” or “No”. If the answer to the market is determined as “Yes” each “Yes” contract will pay out $1.00 and each “No” contract will pay out $0 and vice versa. To learn more about binary option contracts click here.

Where Is Insight Prediction Based?

Insight Prediction is headquartered in the United States of America and incorporated as Marion Research, Inc. in Delaware, and run by Americans.

What Am I trading?

Insight Prediction allows you to trade contracts which range between .1 and 99.9 cents in price. These prices reflect the market’s estimate of the probability of an event taking place.

The value of these contracts fluctuates over time reflecting the beliefs of users as they trade. You can offer to sell your contracts at any point before the markets resolve. If your shares have gone up in value, you may decide to sell in order to guarantee profits or if your shares go down in value you may decide to sell in order to prevent further loss. Alternatively, you can hold onto your shares until the market resolves. At that point, if the event in the market has taken place, Insight Prediction will value ‘Yes’ shares at $1 and ‘No” shares at $0. If it has not, ‘No’ contracts will be valued at $1 while ‘Yes’ contracts will go to $0.

What Are the fees?

Fees at Insight Prediction can depend on the event, and we reserve the right to change the fee structure for new markets at any time. For some policy-relevant markets, Insight Prediction plans to collect no fees at all! As of August 2022, all new markets at Insight Prediction will feature a "maker" subsidy and a taker fee. The maker subsidy will be equal to 2.5% of the product of your cost basis times potential profits. Note that a "maker subsidy" applies when you place an order that is not immediately matching an existing order on the order book. If, instead, you place an order that matches a pre-existing order, then you are a "taker". The taker fees are set to 7.5% of product of the price times the potential profit. Thus, the fees and subsidies are computed as: Maker Subsidy = .025*Price/100*(1-Price/100) & Taker Fee = X*Price/100*(1-Price/100). This means that when buying a share at 50 cents, you would receive about 1.25% of your cost basis in the form of a subsidy, and as a taker, you would pay about 3.75% of your cost basis, or 3.75% of potential profits, in fees. If you bought at 99 cents, you would receive a very small subsidy as a percentage of cost, but close to 2.5% of your potential profits (and you would pay close to 7.5% of potential profits in fees if you were a taker). All fees will be expressly noted in the 'Rules' section of the market. Note that after May 26th, 2022 to the end of July, we charged taker fees of 7.5% of prices times potential profits, and no maker fees. Before that, our fees were set to 3% of profits.

What Are the Maker Subsidy & Taker Fee Schedules?

Our maker subsidies are computed as 2.5% of the price times potential profits: Maker Subsidy = .025*Price/100*(1-Price/100), where the price here is in cents. (Note: maker subsidies are awarded when you create an order that is not instantaneously matched. For example, if the best ask price is 10 cents, and you put in an order to buy at 9 cents, your order would then be placed on the order book to be matched later, and thus would be a "maker" order.) Here is the table for how our taker fees work out for 100 contracts at various prices, rounded to the cent.

Our taker fees are computed as 7.5% of the price times potential profits: Taker Fee = .075*Price/100*(1-Price/100), where the price here is in cents. (Note: taker fees are assessed when you match an existing order on the order books.) Here is the table for how our taker fees work out for 100 contracts at various prices, rounded to the cent.

Depositing and Withdrawing Funds

How to Deposit

We offer our users several methods to deposit. The easiest and fastest method is via regulated stablecoins. We can also handle deposits via PayPal, or wire transfers for amounts over $1,000 (enquire for details: support@insightprediction.com). The stablecoins with low gas fees we accept include: USDC (Sol), USDC (ERC20) and BUSD (BSC), and we also accept other cryptocurrencies.

To deposit funds:

1. Find the Cryptocurrency you wish to deposit on your “Wallet” page.

2. Copy the wallet address, enter the amount you are transferring and click “I confirm”. Be sure to write the amount of crypto you are transferring NOT the dollar value of your transfer.

3. Next, go to your preferred crypto exchange, and click “Send” or “Withdraw”. Then paste your Insight Prediction Wallet address into the address tab, enter the exact amount of funds you are transferring and send the funds.

4. Once you have sent the funds, they will appear in your Insight Prediction Wallet within a couple of minutes. If you used stablecoins your account will be automatically credited. If you used a dollar-backed cryptocurrency (ETH, BTC, SOL, etc.) you will need to convert your crypto into dollars.

TIP: To make sure your funds arrive on time, don't forget to tell us the exact amount you plan to send. If you send funds via the wrong chain, your funds may be lost! Please make sure that if you are sending USDC (ERC20), you are sending to an ERC20 wallet and not to a Solana wallet, for example, or your funds will be lost. For a full walkthrough of how to deposit click here.

What Is the Best Crypto to Deposit with?

Insight Prediction charges no deposit or withdrawal fees. However, deposits are subject to variable network (gas) fees. These fees fluctuate based on network traffic at the time of deposit.

In order to avoid high gas fees, we recommend that you use a network other than Ethereum (ERC20) to deposit which can have gas fees in excess of 100$. We, therefore, recommend depositing using USDC (Polygon), USDC (Solana--abbreviated to SOL) or BUSD (Binance Smart Chain -- BSC) to deposit.

If the exchange you use does not offer USDC (Polygon), USDC (Solana) or BUSD (Binance Smart Chain) wallets, you can still deposit for a low fee by depositing in low-fee crypto such as Solana (SOL) or Litecoin (LTC).

Do I Need to Deposit Stablecoins?

Insight Prediction accepts both stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies. When depositing stable coins, your account will automatically be credited the value of your deposit.

Always make sure you specify the exact amount of the cryptocurrency you are depositing, NOT the dollar value of that deposit.

After you receive your deposit, you will then need to convert your funds to USD in order to place a bet in dollars, as most of our markets are in dollars. Insight Prediction will credit your account the value of your crypto at the time of conversion.

If you plan on depositing a large number of funds onto Insight Prediction, we recommend that you use stablecoins to deposit so as to mitigate potential losses due to price fluctuations.

We also offer some markets in other coins and allow users who wish to buy other kinds of crypto the opportunity to do so.

What cryptocurrencies does Insight Prediction accept?

Stablecoins:

USDC (Polygon), USDC (SOL), USDC (ERC20) and BUSD (BSC)

Cryptocurrencies:

Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Matic (Polygon)

Recommended Exchanges (Note: Don't hold your money here long!):

Coinbase/Coinbase Pro

Cheapest: USDC (Polygon), USDC (SOL), Solana (SOL)

Supports: USDC (Polygon), USDC (SOL), USDC (ERC20), Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC)

Crypto.com

Cheapest: USDC (SOL)

Supports: USDC (ERC20), BUSD (BSC), Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC)

Other Compatible Exchanges:

Gemini

Cheapest: Solana (SOL)

Supports: USDC (ERC20), Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC)

Kraken

Cheapest: Solana (SOL)

Supports: USDC (ERC20), Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC)

Binance

Cheapest: BUSD (BSC)

Supports: USDC (ERC20), Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC)

MEXC.com

Cheapest: Solana (SOL)

Supports: USDC (Polygon), USDC (SOL), USDC (ERC20), Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC)

Walkthrough: Depositing from Crypto.com

Depositing crypto at Insight Prediction is quick and cheap. If you have an Crypto.com account, you can deposit for virtually free using USDC (SOL). If you use another exchange click here. To deposit, you simply must have some cash available on your account to deposit to Insight Prediction using a stablecoin of your choice, or some of the cryptocurrency of your choice. If using Crypto.com, you may first need to purchase USD Coin (USDC) or BUSD, both stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar.

First, on Insight Prediction, navigate to the green "Deposit" at the top right of the screen (or, click on the white "Profile" icon, and then "Wallet" from the drop-down menu).

Then click on the deposit button in the row of the crypto (and network) you would like to deposit in. We recommend depositing in USDC (SOL) (this is the USDC coin on the Solana network), which is fast and has low fees, and so we have highlighted it in red below.

Important: Don't forget to enter the amount you would like to deposit (important for us to match your deposit), and then copy the address of wallet address and click "I Confirm".

Then go back to your wallet tab and click "WITHDRAW" on the USD Stablecoins row.

Click on the "WITHDRAW USDC" tab.

Then enter the amount you want to transfer, paste the Insight Prediction wallet address in the USDC address tab and choose “Solana SPL” from the drop-down menu. After clicking withdraw your USDC should show up in your Insight Prediction Wallet within a couple of minutes for a Solana network transfer (and typically within, say, 30 minutes for a bitcoin other Ethereum network transfer).

Walkthrough: Depositing from Non-USDC (SOL) Exchanges (Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, etc.)

If your preferred crypto exchange does not offer USDC Solana wallets, we recommend depositing using a cryptocurrency with low network fees such as Litecoin (LTC) or Solana (Sol). To deposit using these cryptocurrencies you must first purchase them on your preferred crypto exchange, send them to your Insight Prediction wallet, and then convert them into dollars on Insight Prediction. The following walkthrough will be using Coinbase exchange to deposit Solana (Sol), however, this process can be accomplished using any compatible exchange or cryptocurrency.

To begin, first, navigate your way to your “wallet” page on Insight Prediction and click the deposit button for Solana (Sol).

Then copy the wallet address, enter the amount you are transferring and click “I confirm”. Be sure to write the amount of crypto you are transferring NOT the dollar value of your transfer.

Next, go to your preferred crypto exchange, and click “Send” or “Withdraw”. Then paste your Insight Prediction Wallet address into the address tab, enter the exact amount of funds you are transferring (denominated in SOL) and send the funds.

Once you have sent the funds, they will appear in your Insight Prediction Solana Wallet within a couple of minutes.

Once your funds arrive click “Convert” and your funds will be credited to your Insight Prediction account.

My Deposit Has Not Arrived. What Should I Do?

You can navigate to the "Deposits" tab on your wallet to check the status of your deposit. If you did not receive it, you can click on the "I didn't receive a deposit" button.

Then you can enter the amount of your transaction, the coin, and the Transaction ID (from the blockchain you sent, if it is available), and we will look for your transaction. The most common reason that a transaction fails is that someone forgot to confirm their original deposit amount. If so, then entering just the amount and the coin can help. If you also enter the Transaction ID, we can look up and verify your transaction on the blockchain, and then credit your account.

If that does not work, or if you have any problems along the way, then feel free to reach out to us at support@insightprediction.com or ask us questions on our discord: https://discord.gg/Ern9ThVfzs.

How to Trade

How Do I Trade?

Insight Prediction allows you to trade binary options, contracts which range between .1 and 99.9 cents in price, and pay off one dollar if the conditions are satisfied and zero otherwise. A "Latest Yes Price" of 87¢ indicates that the event has an 87% chance of happening. If you buy one share of a "Yes" contract (in this example, it is if the Republicans win the House in the 2022 midterm elections) at 87¢, and the Republicans win, you will be paid $1.00, with a 13¢ profit (14.9%) before fees.

The value of these contracts fluctuates over time reflecting the beliefs of users as they trade. You can offer to sell your contracts at any point before the markets resolve. Note that if your shares have gone up in value, you may decide to sell in order to guarantee profits. Conversely, if your shares go down in value you may decide to sell in order to prevent further loss. Alternatively, you can hold onto your shares until the market resolves. At that point, if the event in the market has taken place, Insight Prediction will value "Yes" shares at $1 and "No” shares at $0. If it has not, "No" contracts will be valued at $1 while "Yes" contracts will go to $0.

How Do I Use the Order Book?

Insight Prediction uses an order book similar to a stock exchange. Order Books have “Bids” and “Asks”. The term "Bid price" refers to the highest price a buyer will pay to buy a specified number of shares while the term "Ask price" refers to the lowest price at which a seller will sell shares. The “Ask size” refers to the number of shares available to buy, and the "Bid size" refers to the number of shares available to be sold.

If you believe a market is more likely to resolve as “Yes” than the current best ask price then you can trade on this belief by buying shares at the lowest ask price available (87.1¢ in the case above). So, if I thought the Republicans had a greater than 87.1% chance of winning the House of Representatives, I could buy up to 1,000 contracts priced at $0.871 each, at a cost of 1,000*.871 = $871 (shares*price = cost).

Alternatively, If I thought the Democrats were undervalued at 13%, I would want to buy “No” contracts. To buy “No” contracts simply click the “No” button under options, fill in the lowest ask price and the number of contracts I wanted to purchase and click the "Next" button.

After clicking the blue “Next” button you’ll be shown the number of shares, the price of the shares, and the total cost of the order. To complete the trade simply press the “Submit Offer” button.

How Do I Sell Shares I Have Already Purchased?

If you first buy "Yes" shares, then there are two ways to sell. The first is to click on the "Sell" button to sell your yes shares. Alternatively, you can buy "No" shares, and your yes and no shares will automatically cancel. Conversely, if you first buy "No" shares, you can either sell your "No" shares, or buy "Yes" shares, and they will cancel. Below we show what happens if you try to sell "Yes" shares before you have any: you will get a "You don't have shares to sell" error message.

How to Place a Resting (Or "Maker") Order

If you are interested in buying shares at a lower price than they are currently offered, you can place a resting order at a price of your choice. Let’s say I want to bet that the Republican Party will win the House, but I think that 87% is too high of a probability and I’m only willing to buy at 83%.

I could place a resting order to buy at 83% by filling in the order tab with the price and quantity of my choosing.

After submitting your offer, the Resting-order will be added to the order book and other users will have the opportunity to fill that order if they so choose. The order will show up for you in red in the order book (see below).

Can I Cancel Trades and Orders I Place?

Once a trade is executed, that trade is final and cannot be canceled. Once an order is placed it can be canceled at any point. To cancel an order, go to the market of the page you'd like to cancel an order on (to find which markets you have orders on, you can go to the “My Markets Tab”). All markets in which you have placed an order will appear there. You can then click on the market, scroll down to “Your Outstanding Orders” and click the trashcan icon to cancel.

I Am Used to European or American Odds. Is There a Way to Switch?

On our platform, you can toggle between our own "probability" odds, formatted in cents, and European decimal odds, or American odds. Note that the trades themselves, and the latest yes price have to be placed in our own probability odds formatted in cents, but you can view the order book in terms of either European or American odds by clicking the settings button to the right of "Options".

How to Buy and Sell Crypto

First, navigate to your wallet page.

Then, click convert on the currency you want to change from. Thus, if you want to change from dollars to bitcoin, for example, you click on the "convert" button on the row with USD. (If, instead, you want to convert from bitcoin to USD, you'd click on convert on the bitcoin row.)

Then you choose the coin you want to convert to and enter the amount of USD you'd like to convert. You may also click on convert to see what rate you will get. We tend to match with the best exchange rate we can get on Coinbase, and currently do not charge any fees for this service.

Rules/Market Resolution

When Does a Market Close?

Markets close at the "End Date" listed in the rules of every market. Insight Prediction reserves the right to extend the End Date of a market if the underlying event is postponed. Insight Prediction may also close a market before the ‘End Date’ if the outcome of the market is decided. Insight Prediction maintains sole discretion over when markets resolve and stresses that the “End Date” is subject to change in order to maintain the integrity of the market. Insight Prediction will always strive to resolve markets fairly, according to the specific rules of the market in question.

How Long Does it Take a Market to Resolve After the Event Has Happened?

Insight Prediction recognizes that users prefer payouts as soon as possible after the outcome of a market has been determined. Insight Prediction prioritizes resolving markets as soon as possible without jeopardizing the integrity of our markets. As a general standard, users should expect markets to be resolved within two days of their outcome being determined.

What Is the Review Process if I Believe a Market Has Resolved Incorrectly?

If you believe a market has been resolved incorrectly you can contact us at support@insightprediction.com.

If a market resolution is thought to be contentious, we will typically write a draft resolution clearly explaining our thinking. Then, we will solicit feedback from the community. It might be that many market participants have much more specialized knowledge, and can point out factual errors in our logic. Then, we will consider their points, and come to a final decision. Our goal with the process is to resolve markets as accurately and fairly as possible and with an eye toward avoiding confusion and controversy. That said, there will always be markets that are hotly contested.

How Are Sports Markets Where There Is a Cancellation or 'Technical Draw' in MMA Resolved?

In the case that there is an event cancellation, long postponement, or a "No contest" or "technical draw" in MMA, what will we do? If there are just a few trades, and no one has bought and then sold shares, what we will do is just refund each user's money (Note that if we have props on MMA, such as who won round 1, that can be resolved even in the case there is a technical draw, then we will still resolve it as normal.)

However, if there are many trades, and users have bought and sold shares, perhaps at a profit or loss, we cannot and will not reverse past trades. What we will do in this case is resolve the market at an average of our sport's bots trades. Note that our sports bot tends to be set at an average of bookie odds. So, what this means is that the outcome is set to an average of pre-match odds. Thus, if the bot traded at an average price of 70 cents for the Lakers to win, and the Laker's game is canceled, those who held the Lakers to win will get 70 cents, and those who had the Lakers to lose would get 30 cents.

If a match is delayed by a short amount of time, perhaps by a couple of days, we will not resolve the market but just wait for it to be played. However, if it is rescheduled for months in the future, we will opt for a refund/resolution.

What Is This "Bet Locks" Withdrawal Feature? Why Are My Bets Being Returned?

For certain markets, there is a 72-hour waiting period following share sell orders where you may be unable to withdraw funds that were previously invested in the market. This feature may be enabled on "sudden death" markets where the outcome could be revealed at any time and result in resolution criteria to be met. If this feature is enabled, then any bets placed after such an announcement may be returned to market traders at Insight Prediction's discretion. Markets with the feature enabled will have a notice visible to traders when orders are placed.

For instance, if it is suddenly announced by Elon Musk that he has had another child, then the corresponding market would become resolvable. Any bets placed after announcement would be refunded to traders before the market is resolved. In addition, Bet Locks may also be activated prior to resolution in the event of a court decision, credible statement, or news report that directly leads to resolution or insinuates criteria will be met in the near future (e.g. court ruling that the CFTC cannot force Predict operations to cease, unconfirmed but credible reporting that Musk has had a hidden child). This provides greater protection for liquidity providers against a sudden loss of funds and incentivizes higher-volume trading with a larger liquidity pool.

Note that for sports games and congressional vote margin markets, "Bet Locks" may be applied to trades made any time after the scheduled start time or convening for discussion unless the market specifies otherwise (e.g. "In-Game Trading") in the rules or title of the market.