- Clearmatics unveiled a new decentralized product class called “forecast markets” for blockchain-based futures contracts.
- The company will launch these products on the upcoming Autonity blockchain and the new Autonomous Futures Protocol (AFP).
- Forecast markets can track any public data time series, including crypto indexes, inflation, and even temperatures.
- The system allows the creation of customizable futures contracts, which are different from conventional prediction markets.
- The AFP lets users list products on multiple trading venues and handles all collateral and margin processes on the blockchain.
Clearmatics, a pioneer in blockchain-based financial instruments, is introducing “forecast markets”—a new type of decentralized futures product. The launch will take place on the soon-to-go-live Autonity blockchain and its Autonomous Futures Protocol (AFP). This initiative allows for the creation of on-chain futures contracts pegged to diverse public time series data, as announced ahead of a “Forecastathon” event set for next month.
According to Clearmatics CEO Robert Sams, the AFP supports the creation of dated futures contracts tied to almost any measurable data set. “AFP supports the permissionless creation of dated futures contracts that can track any underlying time series of interest, not just market time series, but non-market time series, like GDP, inflation, global temperature, blockchain metrics etc,” Sams said. “Basically any time series that the market cares about enough to speculate on or hedge, you can create a product for on Autonity.”
Unlike prediction markets that pay out after a single event, forecast markets allow trading on ongoing data, with contracts that continue as long as the underlying time series exists. “A sequence of futures contracts on an underlying data series… can go on in perpetuity,” Sams noted, emphasizing the potential to build long-term liquidity around real-world risk factors. He added, “We see forecast and prediction markets as complementary to one another, serving different needs in a shared and growing space of market-based mechanisms for managing uncertainty.”
Stanley Yong, head of the Autonity Foundation, highlighted the pricing of Singapore’s certificate of entitlement (COE) for cars as an example of a non-traditional risk that can now be hedged. Through a forecast contract, car sellers could secure a future price for their vehicle based on COE auction outcomes.
On the technical side, the AFP distinguishes itself by separating trading and clearing functions. Trading can happen across multiple venues, while all collateral, margin, and settlement operations occur on-chain. This design increases efficiency and addresses problems like liquidity fragmentation in decentralized derivatives trading.
Sams stated, “We think it’s odd to call a market ‘decentralized’ when you can only trade it through one trading venue, even if that monopoly venue is a DEX. We think a market is only decentralized when participants can enter… and exit… through whatever venue they choose.” The upcoming products aim to serve quantitative traders, machine learning researchers, and investors looking to hedge risks not covered by existing financial tools.
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