Market States

There are three possible states in a prediction market's lifecycle.

Open

When a Prediction Market is created, it is immediately Open for trading. Users can now make their predictions by buying outcome shares, sell their outcomes, or add and remove liquidity to markets. Other than that, the market is immutable: the Market Creator cannot edit any information such as the questions, the outcomes, the description, the closing date, etc.

Closed/Awaiting Resolution

Every prediction market has an immutable closing date that is set by the Market Creator during the creation process. When the closing date elapses, the prediction market closes, and the trading stops — no outcomes can be bought or sold anymore. The market is now in the resolution stage. At this stage, the correct outcome must be defined by the governing committee so that the market can be resolved. Note that the market can be considered Invalid by the governing committee.

Resolved

When a market is resolved, users who predicted the correct outcome can claim their earnings. All shares of the winning outcome are now worth 1 unit of the market’s token. Users who predicted any of the incorrect outcomes will not be able to claim any earnings, as the value of their shares is now worth 0. When a market resolves as Invalid, users can claim back/receive the amount of outcome shares that they bought, but at the price of the outcomes at the moment of market closure, not at the price that they originally bought their shares at.