Shayne Coplan 談 Polymarket：鏈上預測市場的未來
Polymarket Fireside Chat
- Shayne Coplan Polymarket 創辦人暨執行長
- Balaji Srinivasan The Network State 創辦人，主持
場次摘要
Shayne Coplan 分享 Polymarket 的創新歷程與鏈上預測市場的發展挑戰，並剖析區塊鏈技術如何推動金融創新。討論涵蓋市場設計、監管趨勢與未來機遇。
值得記下的 5 件事
逐字稿
Polymarket 創業初衷與六年回顧
好，嗯，Shayne，我剛剛回顧了我們最初的訊息往來。我記得你是在 2020 年 6 月 23 日傳訊息給我的，那時其實沒過多久。我們最近剛上線了 www.polymarket.com。我很榮幸能參與這個項目的種子輪投資，像許多勇敢的投資人一樣，真的很自豪能成為這段旅程的一部分。大家都說，第一個億最難賺。那麼，能不能請你簡單回顧一下過去六年 Polymarket 的發展？Alright, um, Shayne, I just went back through our earliest messages. I think you messaged me on June 23, 2020. It wasn't that long ago. We recently launched www.polymarket.com. I'm very proud to have participated in the seed round for this project, like many bold investors say. The first billion is the hardest. So, what's your summary of the past six years for everyone here? Who here knows Polymarket?
其實，給還不認識的人一個簡介，Polymarket 是一個預測市場。你可以在任何事件市場上交易，看到各種事件發生的機率。基本上，我一直在回顧這整段歷史。我們有很多私訊，這是真的，持續了好多年。我常常傳訊息給你，然後等著回覆。有時候，責任在我，因為我可能 12 小時沒回，但沒關係。So, actually, for those who don't know, give us a summary of the last six years. Polymarket is a prediction market. You can go and trade on event markets for anything, and you can see the probabilities for things happening. Basically, I've been browsing through this whole history. We have a lot of DMs, that's accurate, for years and years. I'd message you and just wait for a reply. Sometimes, the responsibility was on me if I dropped off for twelve hours, but that's okay.
你知道，我是從 DeFi 開始的，然後某種程度上跟著主流一起發展。穩定幣也是，你們幾乎是 DeFi 最大的應用之一。你們有 DeFi 的網頁介面，也有像傳統金融那樣的手機介面。你要不要聊聊你是怎麼開始進入 DeFi 的？你什麼時候踏入這個現實世界，也就是傳統金融？就在這之前，我還翻了我們的推特。那其實不在計畫內，但讓我回憶湧現。那是我們上線一週後的事。You know, I started in DeFi and broke into the mainstream by some measures alongside stablecoins. You're almost one of the biggest applications in DeFi. You have a DeFi web interface, and you have a mobile interface that's like traditional finance. Why don't you give us a bit about how you got started in DeFi? When did you kind of enter the real world, the world of traditional finance? Just before this, I was browsing through our Twitter. That wasn't part of the plan, but it brought back a lot of memories. That was a week after we launched.
我們是在 2020 年 6 月 16 日上線的。那時我只希望有人會關注這個產品，或是有額外的資金、投資人願意投入。我記得那個週末我們就在 Polymarket 上開了一個市場，是關於 Scott Alexander 的 Slate Star Codex 被揭露身份的事件。我還記得我傳給你看，Balaji 當時很嚴格，說不能改、不能幫忙宣傳。我覺得那真的很有趣，就分享了出去，那也是我們第一次小小的成功，開始在 X 上被關注，大家開始追蹤我們，注意力開始聚集。We launched on June 16, 2020. At that time, I was just hoping someone would care about it or there would be some announcement of extra money or funding that people wanted to invest. I remember that weekend we created a market on Polymarket for, um, Scott Alexander's Slate Star Codex being doxxed. I sent it to you, and Balaji was very strict, saying you can't change it or promote the project. I thought it was really interesting and shared it, and that was our first little success where it spread a bit on X and people started following, and attention started building.
Polymarket 的產品哲學與創新挑戰
這真的是一段不可思議的旅程，非常艱辛，但同時也很激勵人心。我認為，當你要用前沿科技創業時，你必須思考什麼是有道理的、十年後還會有意義的，以及從基本原則出發，什麼東西能長期存活。在我看來，你應該圍繞這些用例去打造產品，忽略那些你覺得沒長遠價值的短期熱潮。我相信長線思維才是最終會有回報的方式。這幾年我吸收了各種區塊鏈應用的經驗。It's been an incredible journey, extremely tough of course, but also inspiring and exciting. I think ultimately, when you think about building with advanced technology, you have to consider what makes sense, what will make sense a decade from now, and what can persist long-term from a first principles perspective. From my point of view, you should build around those kinds of use cases and ignore all the noise or current trends if you don't think they have staying power. I think long-term thinking is usually the way to get rewarded, and what I'm grateful for is that through years of absorbing all the different blockchain use cases.
我認為 Polymarket 能夠在鏈上啟動有兩個很重要的原因。第一，這些市場不是傳統衍生品交易所會覺得值得投入的東西。沒有人會想自動上架一個極度小眾的事件合約，因為它不會帶來營收，也沒人想提供流動性，雖然對價格發現有幫助，但本質上不是一門好生意。這需要一個年輕又沒錢的人，整天坐在電腦前，從完全不同的角度去看待這些機會，像是想看到各種事物的價格，並把它當成資訊來源。I think there were really two important parts about how Polymarket started onchain. The first is that these markets, you know, no traditional derivatives exchange would ever think the yield is worth the effort to say: hey, let's self-list or list an event contract about something super niche. It won't make revenue, it won't generate volume, nobody wants to provide liquidity, and while it might be useful for price discovery, it's not really a business. It takes a broke young guy sitting in front of his computer all day to say: hey, others might not see this as a big opportunity, but I'm passionate about it from a totally different perspective, like the idea of seeing prices for things and being able to use that as an information source.
我試著想辦法實現這件事。當然有風險，而且我幾乎無法完全理解那些風險，但我還是決定往前衝。這種體驗只有區塊鏈才能實現。現在你看到預測市場到處都是，如果沒有這種無需許可的金融創新，根本不會有證明用戶需求的機會。第二點是，當你用新科技做新東西時，你可以鋪路，讓後來的每個挑戰都能從基本原則重新思考，問自己：理論上這應該長什麼樣？如果我們反推未來，該怎麼設計？I tried to figure out how to do it. And yes, there are risks, and yes, I could barely grasp what those risks were, but I was going to try anyway. That experience was only possible with blockchain. Now you see prediction markets everywhere, but if permissionless innovation in these financial applications wasn't available, there would never have been proof of demand for people to use these tools. Then, the second element in my view is that when you build something new with new technology, it lets you pave the way so that every challenge that comes later is a chance to think from first principles and ask: what's the best possible version of this, theoretically? If we work backwards from the future, how did we get here? What were the right Lego blocks to put in place? What was the right path to build this the right way?
我覺得我們做的很酷的一點，就是 Polymarket 完全依賴 DeFi，只有網頁版，不能在美國交易，但你可以看到所有這些有趣事件的機率，而且不只是子機率。這也促使我們在分發上做得更好，讓大家隨時都能看到 Polymarket 的圖表和機率。其實我們最早的經驗，就是你分享 Slate Star Codex 那個事件。預測市場其實有歷史，像 Augur 之前就有人嘗試過，很多人在你們之前都試過。你有沒有想過為什麼這次成功？你那時才二十出頭吧？I think the cool thing about what we were doing is the fact that Polymarket was built on DeFi, web-only, not available for trading in the US. But you could get odds for all these really interesting things, and you couldn't just do sub-odds. That pushed us to really excel at broad distribution, to make the idea of seeing Polymarket for something and seeing the chart and the odds something you see all the time. So I think that first experience was actually your sharing of the Slate Star Codex event. And you know, there was a history of prediction markets. For example, Augur was tried before. Many tried before you guys started to take off. Do you have a theory about why? I mean, you were young. When did you start? Were you in your twenties?
預測市場的創意應用與社會影響
我開始時 21 歲，但其實我早就對預測市場很有興趣。我是 Augur 的大粉絲，任何認識我、在 Polymarket 之前的人都知道我對這領域非常熱情。我覺得能為任何事情創建市場，這個想法本身就是一塊創意畫布，可以衍生出很多不同的應用場景。這也是為什麼大家會說 Polymarket 讓這一切成真。對我來說，這還只是很小的一部分，還有很多創意用法現在看起來很邊緣，短期內不會帶來營收，但三到五年後可能會產生巨大影響，甚至徹底改變現狀。When I started, I was twenty-one, but I was already interested in prediction markets. I'm a big fan of Augur. Anyone who knew me before Polymarket knows I was super passionate about this regardless. I saw the idea that you could create markets for anything as a very creative canvas for inventing a bunch of different use cases. That's why people say, oh, you know, Polymarket made it real, all of this. I still see it as a very small part of what's possible, because there are all these creative uses that might seem marginal now and may not compete with our revenue soon, but they could be impactful and have consequences in the long run, three to five years out, and could change things dramatically for the better.
我們已經看到，特別是在地緣政治和美國政治領域，Polymarket 的機率作為一種標準，真的改變了敘事，也改變了人們能說什麼、不能說什麼。你什麼時候覺得 Polymarket 開始爆紅？是 2024 年美國大選那時嗎？你一直很努力，2020、2021、2022 這幾年創業的感覺怎麼樣？當你做一個以市場為核心的生意時，你總是要確保需求和供給都能持續。We've already seen, especially with a lot of geopolitics and US politics, that the idea of Polymarket odds as a relevant standard changed the narrative and changed what people were allowed to say in terms of claims and nonsense. So, yeah. When did you feel—was it 2024 and the election that was your rocket ship moment? You've been working hard, grinding through 2020, 2021, 2022. What was it like building a business based on a market? You always want to make sure there's sustainable demand and sustainable supply.
我認為大家常說的那些加密應用快速燒錢，就是因為需求不持久。它們燒得很快、很亮，然後又很快熄滅。從實際角度來看，需求其實只是某種非理性熱情的產物。大家以為自己買到有價值的東西，實際上可能一文不值，但他們還是相信會漲一百倍，想在歸零前賣掉。這其實是一種有趣的遊戲，雖然有人真的能賺到錢，但我從來不是為了這個才做 Polymarket。你要看清楚，這就是一場非理性熱潮和「燙手山芋」遊戲，凡是漲得高的，終究會跌下來。I think one of the reasons people talk about these crypto apps burning fast is because the demand isn't sustainable. They burn really fast, shine really bright, then fall as quickly as they rose. If you think about it practically, the demand isn't sustainable—it's a function of some kind of irrational hype. People think they're buying something valuable when it's actually worth nothing, but they believe it might go up a hundred times and want to sell before it goes to zero. That's a fun game, and it's not that people can't make a lot of money from it. That was never what interested me, but you have to see it for what it is: it's a game of irrational hype and hot potato, where everything that goes up must come down.
Balaji 你常說，Polymarket 的市場沒有指數型獲利。如果你持有某個市場的股票，最高也就一美元，你不能說它有一天會值一百萬美元，所以沒辦法盲目進場。你能不能解釋一下這點？這其實很有趣，因為獲利有限，為什麼還是有人願意買？我們剛剛才聊到這個。Balaji, you often mention that with Polymarket, if you're trading in these markets, there's no exponential profit, right? If you own shares in a market, the maximum value is one dollar, so you can't buy them and say, oh, maybe one day it'll be worth a million dollars, so you can't go in blindly. Can you explain this? That's something I've always found fun and entertaining. Given that the gains are capped, right? Why do people still buy them? We were just talking about this.
Polymarket 的設計機制與市場運作
我認為有兩個重點。第一是預測市場的本質，你有一個關於未來的問題，有「是」和「否」兩種股票。所有東西都是全額擔保的，每一股「是」都對應一股「否」，這叫做完整組合，每股都由一美元支持，這裡是一美元的穩定幣。如果事件發生，「是」股就值一美元。你在 Polymarket 上看到規則，如果事件發生，每股「是」就能兌換一美元。I think there are two elements. One is the essence of a prediction market, where you have a question about the future, and you have a yes share and a no share. Everything is fully collateralized, so for every yes share, there's one no share. This is called a complete set, and each is backed by one dollar—in this case, one dollar of stablecoin. If the event happens, the yes share is worth one dollar. When you look at Polymarket, you see the rules: if it happens, you get a dollar per yes share.
當「是」股在訂單簿上交易時，假設價格是 32 美分，這代表它兌現一美元的現值是 32 美分，也就是說事件發生的機率是 32%。我們的設計就是讓你能直接看到這個機率，還有一個比專業交易更直觀的圖表。回到產品設計，當你從零開始打造一個新東西時，你要思考每個環節是不是可持續的，還是只是某種短期熱潮讓它看起來可行，之後卻會崩潰。這也是為什麼我們早期用的是 AMM 固定乘積做市商。When a yes share is trading in the order book, say at 32 cents, that means its present value for being worth a dollar is 32 cents, so the probability of it happening is 32%. Our design was about letting you see that probability, and a chart that's more informative than just a pro trading experience. To take a step back, when you want to build something from scratch like this, you have to think: are all the parts of the chain I'm building sustainable, or is there some kind of hype making part of the chain look sustainable when it won't be later, and then everything collapses? That's why, when we started Polymarket in the early days, we used AMMs—constant product market makers.
那時我得不斷拜託大家，總共大概有三萬美元被拿來當流動性。當時的想法是，如果你想買「是」或「否」股，需求端不能太大，因為 AMM 結構效率很低，但它至少能提供流動性和價格發現，讓我們測試市場到底有沒有人想參與。這是第一步。接下來幾年，證明早期的需求是真的，大家真的很愛看機率，也覺得在市場上交易很有趣。So I had to beg over and over. There was about thirty thousand dollars people provided as liquidity for these platforms. The idea was, you couldn't be on the demand side if you wanted to buy yes or no shares. You couldn't buy much because the market structure was very inefficient with these platforms, but it was a way to provide liquidity and price discovery so you could test if there was demand at all. That was the first step. Over the next few years, I think it was like: okay, my early demand was validated, people really cared about seeing the odds, and people actually found it fun to trade in the markets.
現在 Polymarket 主要都是體育賽事市場。那早期呢？是不是主要是加密貨幣衍生品？其實一開始最大宗的是新冠疫情。那時正好疫情剛爆發，大家都在討論疫苗什麼時候會好、紐約什麼時候解封、病毒來源會不會被查明等等。從零開始做產品，你得自己一刀一刀雕出一個新生態系，不斷思考、嘗試、修正，直到找到可持續的做法。So today, it's all about sports markets. What was it like in the early days? Was it like crypto derivatives? Yeah, in the beginning, the biggest thing was COVID. It was the start of the pandemic, and you saw all these people talking about when the vaccine would be ready, when lockdown would end in New York, or whether there would be a determination of the virus's origin, all these things. But when you build something from scratch, you have to carve out a new ecosystem, think and iterate and try until you find some kind of sustainable way to do the next thing.
Polymarket 的社會影響與市場校準
這一切最後都匯聚在你剛剛問的問題上，就是拜登和川普的第一次辯論。我記得我當時坐在飯店房間裡看著拜登結巴，有個很聰明的人在 podcast 上說，拜登退選的機率在 Polymarket 上大概是 20% 多。那真的是個大事件，很多人都在 X 上討論。那時我很早就參與了 Slate Star Codex 的市場，那也是一個轉折點，開始有了動能。And all of that came together in your last question, which was the first Biden-Trump debate. I remember sitting in a hotel room watching Biden stammer, and someone, a really smart person on a podcast, said the probability of him dropping out was trading in the twenties on Polymarket. That was a big moment. A lot of people were tweeting about it. I was very early with the Slate Star Codex market. That was when things started to move, and there was momentum.
Polymarket 當時的拜登勝選機率暴跌，留在選戰的話勝率很低，退選機率卻很高，這讓大家不得不快速調整自己的判斷。我記得我還發文說 Polymarket 才是真正的新聞。這裡有個很有趣的循環：你需要市場關注度來帶動流動性，而市場本身的波動又會創造新的關注，只要主題夠重要，這又會進一步帶來更多流動性。這就是注意力和流動性之間的共生關係，像一個正向飛輪。Polymarket saw Biden's odds of winning collapse, so if he stayed in the race, his odds were very low, and the odds of him dropping out were very high. That forced people to be able to switch quickly. I remember I posted something like, Polymarket is the news, right? There's an interesting cycle here: you need market attention to get liquidity, and market movement itself creates a new cycle if the topic is important enough. That, in turn, builds liquidity. That's why there's this interesting symbiotic relationship between facilitating attention and attention itself—it's a flywheel.
我記得那時有人跟我說，Shayne，你有兩條路：一是拜登沒事，Polymarket 信譽全毀；二是拜登退選，你就成為全球最重要網站之一的創辦人。我當時心想，讓我們拭目以待。但其實這不是我個人的功勞，而是市場的力量。當然，大家有時會把市場判斷錯當成我的意見。我很喜歡我們做的事，因為有些人真的很信任 Polymarket，甚至覺得我在房間裡親自算機率。其實厲害的是，這個系統本身就能產生價值，大家不需要懂背後的技術細節，只要用就能受益。I remember someone told me at the time, Shayne, there are really two ways this can go: one, Biden stays and Polymarket loses all credibility; two, he drops out and you become the founder of one of the most important sites in the world. I said, let's see. But it's not really about me—it's the market, right? Of course, sometimes people mistake the market's judgment for my opinion. What I love about what we do is that some people really rely on Polymarket and can't believe how accurate it is. They imagine me sitting in my bedroom crunching the numbers. What's great about building something like this, especially with new technology, is that it delivers value, and no one really needs to know the technical details behind the scenes. They can just use it and benefit from it.
其實你有歷史數據，理論上可以做回測，比如說所有在結束前一小時機率是 59% 的市場，最後有多少真的發生？你可以把這些數據分組，做真正的校準。我相信你們有做過這種分析。其實只要上 Google Scholar 就能找到很多人做過這類研究。大家常問 Polymarket 的準確度跟什麼比？但「其他東西」到底是什麼？Balaji 你對很多事都有見解，這裡也有很多聰明人和不那麼聰明的人。即使只是部分相關，能有這種關聯性就很厲害了。Actually, since you have historical data, you could do backtesting. For example, all markets that were at 59% an hour before close—how many of those actually closed at one versus zero? You could bucket that and do real calibration. I'm sure you've done that. You can just go on Google Scholar; lots of people have done that. People often ask: how accurate is Polymarket compared to other things? But what are the 'other things'? Balaji, you have opinions on a lot of stuff, and I'm sure there are a lot of smart people and maybe not-so-smart people here. Even if it's only somewhat correlated, that's amazing.
有沒有一個公開的數據儀表板或平台可以查這些？如果你不同意它的機率判斷，它就會說：你覺得太低就去買。這讓我想到 2016 年美國大選，Nate Silver 當時給川普四成勝率，其他人都說 99% 希拉蕊會贏，大家還因此生 Nate Silver 的氣。其實這些都是機率，你怎麼知道 40% 是不是對的？你可以有 40% 的機率，結果還是 1 或 0。但如果你有很多預測市場，像所有在結束前一小時是 40% 的事件，最後有多少真的發生？Is there a single reference dashboard or platform you can go to and check? And the thing is, if you don't agree with it, it says: hey, if you think this is too low, go buy. This reminds me of the basics—do you remember the 2016 election, Nate Silver, who I generally respect? He became more realistic these days, or whatever you want to call it, but he was one of the few who gave Trump a nonzero chance. I think it was, I forget exactly, twenty or thirty percent, forty percent chance for Trump to win. And everyone was mad at him because others were saying it was ninety-nine percent. Obviously, these are probabilities, so how do you know if forty percent is right? You can have a forty percent chance and the outcome is still one or zero. But with what you have, if you have a lot of prediction markets, like all the things that were at forty percent an hour before close, how many of those actually happened?
Polymarket 的成長與區塊鏈願景
你可以做回測，所以我之後會再看看這個。好，現在我們從 COVID 相關的話題轉到選舉。現在的市場分布是什麼？Polymarket 現在長什麼樣？其實就像體育賽事一樣。你看，從有機地建立分布和觸及用戶的規模來說，真的很令人印象深刻。我不會說是史無前例，但確實是非常大規模且擴散得很快。這一切都取決於當下的 zeitgeist，你有機會抓住這些機會，雖然這不一定帶來最大的交易量或收入，但這就是你磨練技能、往前走的方法。You can do backtesting, so I'll look into that later. Okay, so now today we've moved from COVID stuff to election stuff. What's the breakdown? What do markets look like today? What does Polymarket look like? It's kind of like sports, you know. Look, I think in terms of building distribution and reach in an organic way at scale, it's been really impressive. I wouldn't call it unprecedented, but it's really at a large and fast-spreading scale. It always depends on what's in the zeitgeist, and you have the odds for that, and that may not be the biggest trading volume or revenue, but it's how you sharpen your skills and move forward.
我覺得 Polymarket 最大的特色是我們的 DNA 就是區塊鏈。我從 Ethereum 剛開始時就在裡面了。2013、2014 年我收到很多人私訊說：『嘿，我們可以喝杯咖啡嗎？』大家都在想：『這小子到底是誰？』他們讓我自己去闖，但我還是很堅信——即使你覺得我瘋了——金融自由、可組合性，以及擁有開放金融工具的理念。讓下一代能夠用某種資產作為抵押來借貸，還能自己設計 UI。I think the big thing about Polymarket is that our DNA is blockchain, you know. I was there in Ethereum and involved from the beginning. I got a lot of DMs in 2013 and 2014 from people saying, 'Hey, can we grab coffee?' And everyone was wondering, 'Who the hell is this kid?' They left me alone, but I'm still a big believer—even if you call me crazy—in the principle of financial liberalism, composability, and the ability to own open financial tools. Letting the next generation build an app that lets you borrow against certain assets, and design your own UI.
我認為，區塊鏈上的金融積木，加上 AI 開發，應該會帶來金融應用的寒武紀大爆發。但你需要很穩固的基礎才能做到這一點。我仍然很堅信 Polymarket 可以成為這其中很重要的一部分，也希望我們能做到這個目標。I think the financial building blocks available across blockchains, plus development with AI, should be a catalyst for a Cambrian explosion of financial applications. But you need solid foundations for that to work. I still feel strongly that Polymarket can be a big part of that, and I hope we can achieve that goal.
規模化、監管與未來的市場模式
過去幾年，Polymarket 最明顯的主題就是當規模變大時，會有很大不同。當你是個十人團隊、在鏈上運作、沒什麼行銷還能有很高利潤，這很酷。但如果你有遠大願景，找到擴張和進入大眾市場的機會，這會為你打開更多創新和實驗的大門。你要把握這些機會，我覺得我們就是這樣做的。說到打開大門，美國 SEC 和 CFTC 最近都發了一些指引，大家應該有看到，這真的很重要。簡單來說，ICO 可能終於有正規的路可以走了，讓真正合法的公司能透過發幣上市。你有想過這件事嗎？這是你有興趣的嗎？The biggest theme for Polymarket over the past few years is that when the operational scale expands, things change a lot. It's cool to be an on-chain app with a ten-person team, making huge margins with no marketing. But when you have a big vision and find opportunities to expand and reach the mass market, that opens the door to being more experimental and innovative. You have to seize those, and I think that's what we've done. Speaking of opening doors, the SEC and CFTC have both issued some guidance recently, right? If you've all seen it, it's really important. In short, maybe now the ICO can finally have a proper path, letting a truly legitimate company go public via a token. Have you thought about that? Is that something you're interested in?
對我來說，最重要的還是我們的使命——打造預測市場的承諾。隨著規模擴大，我們現在有美國受監管的交易所、受監管的結算所，也快拿到 FCM 期貨經紀商執照，還有國際 DeFi 平台。監管機關現在比以往都更有前瞻性，他們想跟新科技合作，想找出讓有基礎、有道理的專案能落地的方法，即使現有法規還沒完全適用。我希望我們能站在這波變革的最前線，這是我很自豪的事。For me, the most important thing is still our mission—building the promise of prediction markets. As we've scaled, we now have a US-regulated exchange, a regulated clearinghouse, we're about to get an FCM futures commission merchant license, and we have an international DeFi platform. Regulators are now more forward-looking than ever. They want to work with new technology, want to find ways to localize projects that make sense and have strong foundations, even if they don't fit the current regulatory framework. I hope we're at the forefront of this change, and that's something I'm really proud of.
就像我剛剛說的，小團隊很有趣，但當你有很多機會、很多事要做時，很多其實跟當個有遠見、創新的人無關。如果你只能二選一，專注創新會讓核心業務崩潰，專注核心又沒辦法創新。所以我花了很多時間找優秀的人才加入團隊，這點我真的很驕傲。當然我還在學習，還有很長的路要走。但回到一開始的重點，要打造真正基於區塊鏈的產品或事業，需要大家一起努力，一步一步來，有些事看起來不直覺但你得先學會。Like I said, it's fun to have a small team, but when you have lots of opportunities and things to do, many aren't about being a visionary or creative or productive. If you have to choose, focusing on creativity makes the core collapse, focusing on the core means you can't be creative. So I've spent a lot of time finding great people to join our team, and I'm really proud of who we've brought on. Of course, I'm still learning, still have a long way to go. But to go back to the beginning, to build what I think could be a real blockchain-based product or business, it takes everyone working together, step by step, and there are unintuitive things you have to master first.
DAO 經驗、鏈上資產與未來股權
說到這個，我很喜歡回想我參與 DAO 的經歷，那個 DAO 最後導致了 Ethereum Classic 的誕生。我記得我在 Poloniex 上看 DAO 的交易和各種提案。這其實反映了對區塊鏈技術很深的理解。我也記得 Tezos 的銷售、法定門檻，還有我參與的 DXDAO 首次銷售。這些都是很久以前的事了。我真的很相信鏈上資產、即時流動性和結算的想法，也相信可以擁有代表公司經濟權益的資產，就像 Polymarket 一樣。我希望它能高速成長，有很大的成長潛力，這是大家已經在用的東西。Speaking of that, I always like to remember my involvement in the DAO, which ended up causing Ethereum Classic to exist due to the DAO hack. I remember being on Poloniex, seeing DAO trading and all the DAO proposals. That actually reflects a deep knowledge of blockchain tech. I also remember the Tezos sale, the legal quorum, and the DXDAO initial sale I participated in. That was a long time ago. I really believe in the idea of on-chain assets, instant liquidity and settlement, and also the ability to own an asset that represents a piece of a company's economics, like in Polymarket. I like to think of it as fast growth with high potential, and it's something people are already using.
如果你有股權，還能有某種實用性或功能，比如你持有股份或代幣，不管是什麼，都可以拿來做某些事。這種設計很有持續性，也應該是股權的運作方式。我們現在跟紐約證交所和 ICE 合作很密切，他們是我們最大股東之一。我知道監管機關和交易所都很重視這個議題。我沒辦法給你一個現成的答案，也不能說一定會怎樣，但我知道我們在探索什麼。我覺得如果能讓 Polymarket 成為這種模式的領頭羊，集資、營收成長、有動能和用戶，然後用更傳統的方式上市、提供流動性，如果能有鏈上的對應物又有實際效用，那 Polymarket 能成為第一個正確做這件事的公司，這會很棒。If you have equity, and it also has some kind of utility or function—like if you own the share or token, whatever it is, you can use it for something—that has huge staying power to me, and that's how equity should work. We're working very closely with the New York Stock Exchange and ICE; they're one of our biggest shareholders. I know regulators and the exchange are thinking a lot about this. I can't give you a ready-made recipe, can't say exactly what will happen, but I know what we're exploring. I think if we can position Polymarket to pioneer a model where we've raised a lot of capital, revenue is growing, we have momentum and users, and then use more traditional ways to list your shares and provide liquidity—if you can have an on-chain counterpart with real utility, I think it would be a privilege for Polymarket to be the first to try to do it the right way.
鏈上預測市場的價值與未來方向
我最喜歡、也覺得我們在區塊鏈預測市場做得很好的地方，就是你會想讀所有技術細節，然後判斷哪些真的有實質影響力。你要不斷嘗試，才能把這些東西推向市場，這是我們很專注的事。再次強調，這不是法律或財務建議，各種法律免責聲明都適用。不管我們做什麼，都會在鏈上公開。我覺得這對我們來說真的很令人興奮。對我來說，能在區塊鏈上擁有全球、透明的預測市場，調整保證金來創造市場，然後實驗 outcome tokens 和保證市場的機制，這真的很強大也很有效。我們知道美國的業務成長很快、受到很多關注，但我們沒有忘記最初的核心和那些我們還想實現的想法。What I love and feel we've done well with prediction markets on blockchain is you want to read and consume all the technical stuff, then try to figure out what can have real, substantive impact. You keep experimenting to bring that to market, and that's something we're focused on. Again, not legal or financial advice, all kinds of legal disclaimers apply. Whatever we do, we'll put it on-chain. But I think this is really exciting for us. For me, being able to have global, transparent prediction markets on blockchain, adjusting margin to create a market, then experimenting with outcome tokens and a market that can be guaranteed by this and anything else, is really powerful and effective. We know the business in the US is growing fast and getting a lot of attention, but we haven't lost sight of our core and all the ideas we had at the start that we still hope to make real.
預測市場的驗證、開放與創新
有趣的是，你和我進入加密世界的路徑很不一樣。其實有很多種方式可以進入這個領域，技術、哲學、資本等等。我一直對預測市場很有興趣，像 Robin Hanson 提出的 Futarchy——用市場來預測未來。我很喜歡這個概念，但我其實更在意 retroarchy，也就是把預測市場當成驗證市場。比如賽馬，你不一定知道哪匹馬會贏，但你有很好的紀錄知道哪匹馬已經贏了。這種有數位歷史紀錄的東西很重要，這是事實的紀錄、精確的文件。因為我是理念型投資人，我很愛資本主義，但我也關心你們現在的市場是由團隊協調的，未來會開放嗎？會讓可信賴的第三方來協調更多類型的市場嗎？像 Alex Tabarrok 和 Tyler Cowen 都寫過「市場無所不在」，你們會開放更多預測市場種類嗎？It's funny, you and I came into crypto in different ways. There are many ways to get into this field—technical, philosophical, capitalist, etc. I've always been interested in prediction markets, like Robin Hanson's Futarchy—predicting the future through markets. I love that, but I'm actually more interested in retroarchy, thinking of prediction markets as verification markets. For example, in horse racing, you don't necessarily know which horse will win, but you have a good record of which horse already won. Having a digital history of what was recorded is important—a record of truth, a record of documentation, exactly. Because I'm an ideological investor, I love capitalism, but I also care that your markets are currently curated. Will you open that up? Will you let trusted third parties curate more types of markets? Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen write about markets in everything—will you allow more types of prediction markets?
當你談到驗證市場，我認為它們本質上會從傳統預測市場開始，等結果出來後就變成驗證市場。只要市場還在，如果你看到 99 比 1，那就已經確定了；如果是 80 比 20，代表還沒驗證。這是這些市場很有價值的特性。對我來說，這就是我們想走的方向——成為一個創新的中介平台，讓大家可以在上面實驗，因為有太多應用場景，一個團隊做不完。能力越大責任越大，我們要有推動新市場的想法，找到系統化的方式來發現價格、在 order book 上找到中間價。這基本上是個奇蹟，十年前沒人想過這會變成可能。這一切都要靠對用戶需求的深刻理解。When you talk about verification markets, I think they naturally start as traditional prediction markets and become that once the outcome is known. As long as the market exists, if you see 99 to 1, it's settled; if it's 80 to 20, it's not yet verified. That's a valuable feature of these markets. For me, that's the direction we want to go—becoming a creative intermediary where people can experiment, because there are so many use cases that one team can't do them all. With great power comes great responsibility; we need the idea that we can push forward, create new markets, and find a systematic way to discover prices and find the midpoint in the order book for all these different questions. That's basically a miracle—ten years ago, no one thought this was possible. It all depends on a deep understanding of consumer demand.
回到我剛剛說的，過去的市場很多都沒成功，主要是因為需求端——散戶需求很重要，沒有它，市場流動性成本就會很高。如果你要創造很多不同市場，這個問題會被放大。你要能打造一個好用、需求強的產品，這才是推動價格發現的關鍵。市場結構也要正確，要有有效的資金支持方式，還要能創造明確、不模糊的市場。認識我的人都知道我一直在講這個，但你要先把基礎打好、優先順序排好。如果你沒把市場從頭到尾做順，很多人試過但都失敗，因為一開始就沒建立市場密度。我覺得好事多磨，我們越來越接近這個目標，社群建議也幫了很多。只要能找到可持續的方法讓大家創建自己的市場，可能性無窮。Going back to what I said, previous markets didn't really succeed—demand side, retail demand, is super important. Without it, the cost of liquidity for these markets is high. If you want to create lots of different markets, that problem multiplies. You need to build something easy to use and in demand—that's what drives price discovery. The market structure also has to be right; you need an effective way to support markets financially, and you need to be able to create well-defined, unambiguous markets. Anyone who knows me knows I've been talking about this for a while, but you have to lay the right foundations and set your priorities. If you build something like this and don't make it work end-to-end, as many have tried, it always fails because they didn't build market density from the start. So I think good things come to those who wait, and we're getting closer and closer to that, thanks to community suggestions. There are countless ideas for what you can achieve if you find a sustainable way for people to create their own markets.
市場價值、新聞與定價功能
我想到一件事：如果你畫一個圖，X 軸是注意力，Y 軸是市場價值，體育賽事的結果本身其實沒什麼價值。像 NBA 球隊一年有 82 場比賽，這些比賽本身沒什麼價值，但投注市場上有很多錢。相反地，像六個月後的鎘或鋰價格這種期貨市場，價值就很高，因為有大量資金和經濟價值依賴它。對我來說，最有趣的是進入那些關注度不高但金額很大的市場。你也許可以用新聞報導來帶動這些市場的關注。I thought of something: if you draw a chart with attention on the X-axis and market value on the Y-axis, sports results themselves aren't worth much. Like, there are 82 games a year for a team like the Knicks or any NBA team—those games themselves aren't worth much, but there's a lot of money riding on them in betting markets. By contrast, something like the price of cadmium or lithium in six months—a futures market—that's really valuable because huge amounts of money and economic value depend on it. For me, the most interesting thing is to get into markets that don't have much attention but definitely move a lot of money. Maybe you can use news coverage to drive attention to those markets.
我覺得最重要、但現在還沒被重視的是，只要你能把一個沒價格的問題或風險丟到 Polymarket 上，馬上就有價格了，即使流動性很低。這就成為更大交易的參考點，不管是 OTC、swap 還是 block trade，哪怕價差很大。這就是從 0 到 1 的累積效應，讓原本沒價格的問題有了價格。我覺得我們還有很長的路要走，但我很感激能夠參與這個建設，這真的一點都不無聊，每天都很新鮮。I think the most important thing, which isn't appreciated enough right now and I hope won't stay that way, is that as soon as you can take a question or risk that has no price and put it on Polymarket, suddenly you have a price—even if liquidity is very low. That becomes a reference point for bigger transactions, whether OTC, swap, or block trade, even if the spread is big. These are the cumulative effects when you go from zero to one in terms of a question having no price to having a price. I think we have a long way to go, but I'm really grateful to be able to build this. It's never boring, every day is fresh.
Polymarket 的里程碑與未來展望
最後讓我總結一下：過去六年最瘋狂或最有趣的事是什麼？很明顯，Polymarket 崛起的那一刻，就是我們驗證選舉結果的那一刻，這是最直觀的時刻。我知道我因為這個被批評很多，但隨著俄烏戰爭和中東衝突，越來越多當地人把 Polymarket 當成替代新聞來源，雖然他們不清楚細節。這就是願景成真的時刻。回到體育話題，能快速吸引大量用戶、迅速提升營收很重要，這讓你能再投資、交叉銷售給新用戶。我們當然還沒搞懂一切，但我覺得現在是在美國做金融、區塊鏈、預測市場的特別時刻。Let me wrap up: what's the craziest or most interesting thing that's happened in the past six years? Obviously, the moment Polymarket emerged—when we validated the election results—was the intuitive moment. I know I get a lot of criticism for this, but with the Russia-Ukraine war and the Middle East conflict, the number of people on the ground relying on Polymarket as an alternative news source, without knowing any details, has grown. That's the vision becoming reality. Back to sports, the ability to attract a lot of users quickly and ramp up revenue fast is important if you care about the big picture and seeing everything up front, because that lets you reinvest and cross-sell to new users. We haven't figured everything out, but I think it's a special time to build in America in finance, blockchain, and prediction markets.
我覺得最令人興奮的是，我們現在有資源、有信譽，能跟對的利害關係人互動，不論是商業還是公部門，讓這些想法更容易落地。舉例來說，2021 年我們剛創立 Polymarket 時，就向 CFTC 提出第一個合法化 DeFi 的建議，那時候還被嘲笑，沒人給我們回應，只說『我們喜歡這個，但沒辦法做什麼』。但現在情況完全不同了，真的有框架要把 DeFi、OnChain、預測市場合法帶進美國，這讓我們很興奮。我還有很多要學，還有很長的路要走。每次來這裡都覺得自己越來越像新手，因為野心越來越大，但我很感激有這個機會。感謝加密社群，這是我成長的地方，永遠不會忘記，也會一直是我們的核心。I think one of the most exciting things is that we're now in a position, fortunately, where we have the resources, credibility, and can interact with the right stakeholders—commercially and in the public sector—to make these ideas more accessible. For example, when we started Polymarket in 2021, we submitted our first proposal to legalize DeFi to the CFTC. It was a different era—we were laughed at, got no direct feedback, just 'yeah, we like this, but can't do anything.' Now it's totally different. There are real frameworks coming to bring DeFi, on-chain, and prediction markets legally to America, and we're very excited about that. I still have a lot to learn, a long way to go. Every time I come here, I feel more like a beginner than before, because the ambition grows, but I'm grateful for the opportunity. Thanks to the crypto community—I was born and raised in it, will never forget it, and it's always going to be a core part of what we do.
太棒了，真的很刺激、很酷、Boom！我們就這樣做吧。謝謝大家。Awesome, really exciting, cool, boom! Let's do it. Thank you all.
