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In the hyper-capitalist world we live in, it can often feel like anything and everything is at risk of being monetized. NFTs are simply coded image files that—for whatever reason—are worth millions of dollars. The sharing economy encourages Americans to make money from things they already own — their homes and cars Influencer Lifestyle allows people to monetize their daily activities using social media through highly curated posts. Now, users of various prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi seem to be scraping the bottom of the monetization barrel. New ways to make money online? Predicting the words a person will say.
Yes, apparently there is a new way to make money online and that is to accurately predict the words a person will say during a speech or live appearance. Bloomberg reported On this scary/interesting/hilarious new phenomenon, which it describes as “part of a niche category.” [of prediction market]” where “results are not related to earnings, price changes or sports play, but to what people say in some public forum.”
Bloomberg Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong notes a recent example of this involvement. During the company’s recent earnings call, Armstrong ended up uttering a select number of DeFi terms: “I was a little confused because I was tracking the prediction market about what Coinbase is going to say in their next earnings call,” Armstrong said at the end of the call. “I just want to add the words Bitcoin, Ethereum, blockchain, staking, and Web3 here – so we can get to them before the call ends.”
Bloomberg notes that, across various prediction market platforms, about $84,000 was bet on whether certain words like “stablecoin,” “margin,” and “institution” would be uttered during the call.
It’s not clear how widespread this sort of thing is now. A recent one Mention the market post For example, in Kalshi, Taylor Swift revolves around whether to say “marriage” as part of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on October 6. Gizmodo reached out to Coinbase, Kalshi and Polymarket, a Coinbase spokesperson told Bloomberg that its CEO’s comments were “made in a light-hearted, offhand way, referring to the online discussion around the earnings call.”
