Author: Jake Nyquist , founder of Hook Protocol Compiled by: Blockchain Knight In 2026, major institutions launched new prediction markets. The competition betweenAuthor: Jake Nyquist , founder of Hook Protocol Compiled by: Blockchain Knight In 2026, major institutions launched new prediction markets. The competition between

2026 Forecast Market: A Battle of Titans – 7 Differentiated Breakthrough Strategies for New Players

2026/02/12 15:19
4 min read

Author: Jake Nyquist , founder of Hook Protocol

Compiled by: Blockchain Knight

2026 Forecast Market: A Battle of Titans – 7 Differentiated Breakthrough Strategies for New Players

In 2026, major institutions launched new prediction markets.

The competition between NFT and perpetual contract exchanges over the past five years has made it clear that differentiated products can quickly seize market share.

While existing leading platforms possess advantages in liquidity and regulation, they are burdened with heavy product and technology debt, making it difficult for them to flexibly respond to the impact of new players.

So how should new entrants compete? In my view, predicting differentiated competition in the market revolves around seven key dimensions:

1. Product quality

The founding team can differentiate themselves in areas such as front-end user experience, API stability, development documentation, market structure, and fee structure.

Currently, most established platforms have obvious shortcomings: unreasonable tier settings, opaque fee rules, slow and unstable APIs, and limited order types.

A superior product experience, especially services for API programmatic traders, is a lasting core advantage that allows them to stand firm even against competitors with stronger channel capabilities.

2. Asset Classes and Market Selection

Currently, trading volume in the prediction market is mainly concentrated in sports betting and the crypto-native market.

The new exchange can launch exclusive marketplaces that other platforms cannot offer, and this advantage will be further amplified when combined with a vertical market strategy (point 7).

3. Capital efficiency

Capital efficiency determines the effectiveness of a trader's use of collateral, and there are currently two core focuses:

First, interest-bearing collateral: Instead of allowing idle funds to only earn government bond yields, it provides higher returns, similar to Lighter's support for using LP deposits as collateral and HyENA's USDE margin perpetual contract model.

Second, the margin mechanism. Due to gap risk, the market generally underestimates the leverage value of the forecast market, but the platform can provide limited leverage for continuous markets or implement portfolio margin for hedging positions.

Exchanges can also subsidize lending pools or act as market makers to internalize gap risk, rather than having users share the losses.

4. Oracles and Market Settlement

Oracle reliability remains a systemic weakness in the industry; settlement delays and incorrect results can significantly amplify trading risks.

In addition to improving stability, the platform can implement innovative oracle mechanisms such as human-machine hybrid systems, zero-knowledge proof-based solutions, and context-based AI-driven oracles, unlocking entirely new markets that traditional oracles cannot support.

5. Liquidity Supply

Exchanges cannot survive without liquidity. Feasible paths include: paying professional market makers, incentivizing ordinary users to provide liquidity with tokens, and adopting Hyperliquid's HLP aggregated liquidity model.

Some platforms can also fully internalize liquidity, emulating FTX's model of relying on Alameda as its internal trading team.

6. Regulatory compliance

Kalshi, leveraging its US compliance qualifications, has achieved embedded distribution with Robinhood and Coinbase, capturing retail traffic that Polymarket cannot reach.

There are still a large number of jurisdictions and regulatory frameworks available for deployment, and the compliance prediction market can unlock similar channels, such as adapting to the gaming regulatory rules of various states in the United States.

7. Vertical Strategy vs. Horizontal Strategy

Horizontal strategy: Similar to Hyperliquid in the perpetual contract field, it focuses on building top-level underlying trading infrastructure, inviting third parties to build front-ends and vertical scenarios, and encouraging ecosystem builders to add new markets and develop revenue-generating front-ends (such as Phantom) through proposals.

Vertical strategy: Represented by Lighter, it independently controls the front end, launches mobile applications, and creates a full-process user experience, focusing on integrated experience and direct connection with users.

Polymarket's resistance to deep embedded collaborations and Kalshi's open attitude are a direct reflection of the two strategic choices.

Market Opportunity
Major Logo
Major Price(MAJOR)
$0.08237
$0.08237$0.08237
+2.33%
USD
Major (MAJOR) Live Price Chart
Disclaimer: The articles reposted on this site are sourced from public platforms and are provided for informational purposes only. They do not necessarily reflect the views of MEXC. All rights remain with the original authors. If you believe any content infringes on third-party rights, please contact service@support.mexc.com for removal. MEXC makes no guarantees regarding the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the content and is not responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided. The content does not constitute financial, legal, or other professional advice, nor should it be considered a recommendation or endorsement by MEXC.

You May Also Like

Google's AP2 protocol has been released. Does encrypted AI still have a chance?

Google's AP2 protocol has been released. Does encrypted AI still have a chance?

Following the MCP and A2A protocols, the AI Agent market has seen another blockbuster arrival: the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), developed by Google. This will clearly further enhance AI Agents' autonomous multi-tasking capabilities, but the unfortunate reality is that it has little to do with web3AI. Let's take a closer look: What problem does AP2 solve? Simply put, the MCP protocol is like a universal hook, enabling AI agents to connect to various external tools and data sources; A2A is a team collaboration communication protocol that allows multiple AI agents to cooperate with each other to complete complex tasks; AP2 completes the last piece of the puzzle - payment capability. In other words, MCP opens up connectivity, A2A promotes collaboration efficiency, and AP2 achieves value exchange. The arrival of AP2 truly injects "soul" into the autonomous collaboration and task execution of Multi-Agents. Imagine AI Agents connecting Qunar, Meituan, and Didi to complete the booking of flights, hotels, and car rentals, but then getting stuck at the point of "self-payment." What's the point of all that multitasking? So, remember this: AP2 is an extension of MCP+A2A, solving the last mile problem of AI Agent automated execution. What are the technical highlights of AP2? The core innovation of AP2 is the Mandates mechanism, which is divided into real-time authorization mode and delegated authorization mode. Real-time authorization is easy to understand. The AI Agent finds the product and shows it to you. The operation can only be performed after the user signs. Delegated authorization requires the user to set rules in advance, such as only buying the iPhone 17 when the price drops to 5,000. The AI Agent monitors the trigger conditions and executes automatically. The implementation logic is cryptographically signed using Verifiable Credentials (VCs). Users can set complex commission conditions, including price ranges, time limits, and payment method priorities, forming a tamper-proof digital contract. Once signed, the AI Agent executes according to the conditions, with VCs ensuring auditability and security at every step. Of particular note is the "A2A x402" extension, a technical component developed by Google specifically for crypto payments, developed in collaboration with Coinbase and the Ethereum Foundation. This extension enables AI Agents to seamlessly process stablecoins, ETH, and other blockchain assets, supporting native payment scenarios within the Web3 ecosystem. What kind of imagination space can AP2 bring? After analyzing the technical principles, do you think that's it? Yes, in fact, the AP2 is boring when it is disassembled alone. Its real charm lies in connecting and opening up the "MCP+A2A+AP2" technology stack, completely opening up the complete link of AI Agent's autonomous analysis+execution+payment. From now on, AI Agents can open up many application scenarios. For example, AI Agents for stock investment and financial management can help us monitor the market 24/7 and conduct independent transactions. Enterprise procurement AI Agents can automatically replenish and renew without human intervention. AP2's complementary payment capabilities will further expand the penetration of the Agent-to-Agent economy into more scenarios. Google obviously understands that after the technical framework is established, the ecological implementation must be relied upon, so it has brought in more than 60 partners to develop it, almost covering the entire payment and business ecosystem. Interestingly, it also involves major Crypto players such as Ethereum, Coinbase, MetaMask, and Sui. Combined with the current trend of currency and stock integration, the imagination space has been doubled. Is web3 AI really dead? Not entirely. Google's AP2 looks complete, but it only achieves technical compatibility with Crypto payments. It can only be regarded as an extension of the traditional authorization framework and belongs to the category of automated execution. There is a "paradigm" difference between it and the autonomous asset management pursued by pure Crypto native solutions. The Crypto-native solutions under exploration are taking the "decentralized custody + on-chain verification" route, including AI Agent autonomous asset management, AI Agent autonomous transactions (DeFAI), AI Agent digital identity and on-chain reputation system (ERC-8004...), AI Agent on-chain governance DAO framework, AI Agent NPC and digital avatars, and many other interesting and fun directions. Ultimately, once users get used to AI Agent payments in traditional fields, their acceptance of AI Agents autonomously owning digital assets will also increase. And for those scenarios that AP2 cannot reach, such as anonymous transactions, censorship-resistant payments, and decentralized asset management, there will always be a time for crypto-native solutions to show their strength? The two are more likely to be complementary rather than competitive, but to be honest, the key technological advancements behind AI Agents currently all come from web2AI, and web3AI still needs to keep up the good work!
Share
PANews2025/09/18 07:00
Token Terminal Taps LayerZero to Provide Institutional-Level On-Chain Data Transparency

Token Terminal Taps LayerZero to Provide Institutional-Level On-Chain Data Transparency

Token Terminal, a prominent platform for on-chain analytics and data, has partnered with LayerZero, a cross-chain interoperability network. The partnership aim
Share
Coinstats2026/02/12 17:30
Will the "red envelope rally" of Bitcoin during the Lunar New Year repeat itself this year?

Will the "red envelope rally" of Bitcoin during the Lunar New Year repeat itself this year?

Looking back at the past Spring Festival market trends, Bitcoin has almost always risen during the Spring Festival – from 2015 to 2024, it recorded positive returns
Share
PANews2026/02/12 17:12