Binary outcomes are just the beginning. Here are five strategies that turn prediction markets into a real business.
Prediction markets are one of the most powerful financial instruments ever created. They turn collective intelligence into precise probability estimates. They reward correct forecasts with real money. And they're one of the few financial products where being right matters more than being early.
Basis takes prediction markets further than any platform before it. Predict+ isn't just a market where you bet on outcomes — it's a composable financial primitive where outcome tokens can be traded, borrowed against, leveraged, and compounded.
This is the complete playbook.
How Predict+ Markets Work
Creating a Market
Anyone — human or agent — can create a prediction market on Basis. The process:
- Define the question: "Will BTC hit $200k by December 2026?"
- Set the outcomes: ["Yes", "No"] — or any number of outcomes (multi-outcome markets are where Basis shines)
- Set the closing date: When the market stops accepting new trades
- Deploy: The contract creates outcome tokens, each with its own pricing curve
The market creator earns 20% of all trading fees generated on that market. Forever. Not until the market resolves — on every trade, for the lifetime of the contract.
import time
from basis import BasisClient
client = BasisClient.create(private_key="0x...")
# Create a multi-outcome market
result = client.prediction_markets.create_market(
"Who will win the 2026 World Series?",
"WS2026",
int(time.time()) + 86400 * 180, # 6 months
["Yankees", "Dodgers", "Braves", "Astros", "Other"],
MAINTOKEN,
False, # not frozen
1000 # reward phase amount (parameter name is legacy)
)Five outcomes. Six months. One function call. Creator fees flowing from every trade.
Buying Outcome Tokens
When you believe an outcome will occur, you buy that outcome's tokens. The more tokens you hold, the larger your share of the winning pool.
# Buy "Yankees" shares with 50 USDB
result = client.prediction_markets.buy(
market_token, 0, # outcome 0 = Yankees
USDB, 50_000_000, # 50 USDB (6 decimals)
0, 0 # no minimums
)The price of outcome tokens reflects the market's implied probability. If "Yankees" tokens cost $0.20 each, the market is pricing a 20% probability of a Yankees win.
The Payout Model: Winner Takes All
This is where Basis diverges from every other prediction market.
On Polymarket: If you buy "Yes" shares at $0.20 and win, each share pays $1.00. Your profit is capped at 5x your investment. It doesn't matter if a billion dollars was bet on the wrong side — your maximum payout is hard-coded.
On Basis: When a market resolves, all the USDB from losing outcomes flows into the winning pool. Winners split the entire losing pool proportional to their shares.
The formula:
Your Payout = (Your Shares / Total Winning Shares) × Total Losing Pool
With 5 outcomes and roughly equal betting, 80% of the total pool comes from losers. Your effective return on a correct bet at 20% odds isn't 5x — it's potentially much higher, depending on pool dynamics.
Five Capital Deployment Strategies
The Predict+ system isn't just about betting. Because outcome tokens are full Basis ecosystem tokens, they unlock the entire platform's composability.
Strategy 1: Pure Conviction
The simplest approach. You believe in an outcome. You buy tokens. You wait.
Best for: High-conviction, low-effort situations. A single bet and done.
Airdrop points: Earned on every purchase based on volume.
Strategy 2: Creator Fee Farm
Create prediction markets on high-interest events. Don't even bet — just earn fees from other people's trading activity.
The play:
- Scan news/social for trending topics
- Create markets before anyone else
- Promote the markets to drive trading volume
- Collect 20% of all fees
An agent running this strategy can create dozens of markets per day, each generating passive fee income. A human creator with sharp instincts does the same — identifying high-interest events, deploying markets, and letting trading volume do the rest. The operator with the best market-creation judgment builds a portfolio of fee-generating assets.
Airdrop points: Earned for each market created that attracts active participants.
Strategy 3: Loan-Bet Combo (Path B)
This is where composability gets powerful.
- Buy outcome tokens on your strongest conviction
- Borrow USDB against those tokens at 100% LTV
- Bet on additional outcomes or markets with borrowed USDB
- Result: Double your prediction market exposure without additional capital
Your outcome tokens are collateral. The loan gives you USDB. That USDB funds new positions. If your original prediction is correct, repay the loan from winnings and keep the extra profits.
Risk: If your prediction is wrong, you lose the collateral (outcome tokens become near-worthless). But you still have whatever you bought with the borrowed USDB. The risk is compartmentalized.
Strategy 4: Leveraged Conviction
For agents with extreme conviction and higher risk tolerance.
- Open a leveraged position on the outcome tokens
- Protocol lends additional capital for the trade
- Floor-price-based leverage means no price liquidation
- If correct, amplified returns. If wrong, lose the collateral.
# Leverage buy on outcome tokens — 10 USDB collateral, 7-day position
result = client.trading.leverage_buy(
10_000_000, 0,
[USDB, MAINTOKEN, outcome_token],
7 # days
)Important: Leveraged tokens are held in the leverage contract. They cannot be used as loan collateral. Leverage and loans are separate paths — choose one per position.
Strategy 5: Full Stack
Run all of the above simultaneously with capital allocation rules:
- 40% of capital → creator fee farms (low risk, steady income)
- 30% → conviction bets (medium risk, high upside)
- 20% → loan-bet combos (leveraged exposure)
- 10% → new market exploration (experimental)
Rebalance weekly based on performance. The agent — or human trader — acts as their own portfolio manager, running all streams in parallel.
The Post-Resolution Playbook
What happens after a market resolves is just as important as the bet itself.
The Sell Wave
When a prediction market resolves, winning token holders can sell their tokens or redeem them. Here's the critical insight: selling burns tokens and injects fees into the remaining pool.
This means the first sellers get the worst price, and the last sellers get the best price. The sell wave creates a temporary window where patience is literally profitable.
Strategy for agents and patient traders: Monitor the sell wave. Don't be first to exit. Wait for the burn-and-inject cycle to peak. Exit last.
# Redeem winnings from a resolved market
result = client.prediction_markets.redeem(market_token)The Order Book Advantage
Basis prediction markets include a peer-to-peer order book alongside the AMM. This means:
- You can list sell orders at specific prices
- You can buy from the order book for better prices than the AMM
- Hybrid fills combine AMM + order book in a single transaction
For agents, the order book is an optimization tool. Instead of market-selling into the AMM, list a sell order at your target price and let the market come to you.
# List 100 shares for sale at 0.75 USDB each
result = client.order_book.list_order(
market_token, 0, # outcome 0
100 * 10**18, # 100 shares
750_000 # 0.75 USDB per share
)Dispute Resolution
What happens when someone disputes the outcome?
Public Markets: Community Resolution
Public markets use a multi-stage dispute system:
- Proposal: Anyone can propose the winning outcome (requires a bond)
- Challenge period: If no one disputes within the window, the proposal is finalized
- Dispute: If someone disagrees, they post a counter-bond and propose an alternative
- Voting: Staked token holders vote on the correct outcome
- Finalization: The winning side gets their bond back plus a bounty from the losing side
This creates a market for truth — correct information is economically rewarded, incorrect claims are penalized.
Private Markets: Creator Resolution
Private markets use a simpler model: designated voters (set by the creator) vote on the outcome. This is useful for markets where the outcome is verifiable by a known group — company milestones, community goals, etc.
# Finalize an uncontested public market
client.resolver.finalize_uncontested(market_token)
# Or for private markets
client.private_markets.vote(market_token, winning_outcome_id)
client.private_markets.finalize(market_token)The Multi-Outcome Advantage
Binary markets (Yes/No) are fine. Multi-outcome markets are where Basis prediction markets truly differentiate.
Why more outcomes = bigger payouts:
In a binary market, 50% of the pool loses. In a 5-outcome market, 80% of the pool loses. In a 44-outcome market (like the Democratic Nominee example), 97.7% of the pool loses.
The more outcomes, the larger the losing pool. The larger the losing pool, the higher the potential payout for correct predictions.
This is why Polymarket's biggest markets — the ones with the most outcomes and the most money — show the largest payout gap compared to Basis. The $836M Democratic Nominee market with 44 outcomes produces dramatically higher payouts on Basis than the same bets on Polymarket.
Agent strategy: Actively seek out and create multi-outcome markets. Sports events (multiple teams), political races (multiple candidates), award shows (multiple nominees), crypto predictions (multiple price brackets). The more outcomes you offer, the more attractive the payout structure becomes for bettors — and the more trading volume (and creator fees) you generate.
Putting It All Together
The complete Predict+ agent loop:
- Scout trending events using social listening + news APIs
- Create multi-outcome markets before competitors
- Promote markets with generated content across X, Telegram, Discord
- Trade outcome tokens based on your analysis
- Borrow against positions to amplify exposure
- Earn creator fees from every trade on your markets
- Wait for resolution — exit last through the sell wave
- Reinvest winnings into new markets
Every step generates revenue. Every step earns airdrop points. Every step compounds into the next cycle.
That's not prediction market gambling. That's a prediction market business — available to any operator who wants to run it, human or autonomous.
Predict+ on Basis: Create markets. Trade outcomes. Borrow against positions. Win from the entire losing pool. The prediction market system built for operators who think bigger than a bet. launchonbasis.com
Basis Team
Published Mar 21, 2026