How a fact becomes a settlement
Prediction markets pay out real money on yes/no questions about the world. Someone has to determine the answer, correctly, every time, and stand behind it with an auditable record — like a ratings agency for events. Here is how that determination gets made, walked through one example: resolving a market on whether a drug’s trial met its goal.
Primary sources are monitored continuously.
Before any market exists, the monitoring layer is already tracking every trial across its whole life: registrations, status and enrollment changes, timeline shifts, amendments, and eventually the data. Thousands of events pour in; only a handful matter, and one of them will decide a market that doesn't exist yet. The counter below is one day's intake.
Candidates are evaluated before any market lists.
A surfaced candidate is weighed against curation considerations developed with domain experts. These are not rules and remain provisional: they describe what tends to make a stronger candidate, not a checklist every market must pass. AppliedXL scores the strength and puts candidates forward; the exchange's markets team decides what lists.
The resolution criteria are locked when the market opens.
A candidate that passes becomes a listed contract. Every market follows the same template, filled in per event. It reads as a question; underneath, it points to a public document, the primary endpoint registered before the trial began. Tap the card.
Information that can resolve the market is checked against the locked criteria.
A readout lands with a triumphant headline. A keyword-matching bot reads "transformative success" and resolves the market YES, paying out millions. It's actually NO. Here is what the headline hides, and what a careful read catches.
…median overall survival did not reach statistical significance (HR 0.91, p = 0.14) versus the control arm…
A specialist signs the resolution, and the exchange validates it.
The pipeline produces a suggested resolution and the evidence behind it. A specialist reviews both and signs, writing a time-stamped audit trail. That signed resolution is then issued to the exchange as a signal, not a settlement: the exchange validates it before any contract pays out.