Kaspa dev pushes for an “ownerless” prediction market on base layer, aims for mainnet by end of 2026 Kaspa developer Manyfest (identified as Sivan Helfer on the Kaspa dev forum) is targeting a full mainnet release of an ownerless, permissionless prediction-market protocol on Kaspa’s base layer by the end of 2026. In a Nov. 11 post on X, Helfer said he’s spent recent months working with Bit Cat (@maxibitcat) to convert the proposal into an Argent application and map out how markets, outcome tokens and settlement would operate without any central owner or beneficiary—other than miners, who would receive protocol-level rewards. What they’re building - A fully open, decentralized and permissionless prediction-market application on Kaspa’s base layer. Users can create markets, mint outcome tokens and trade them through compatible decentralized exchanges while running their own application code. - Markets are binary: creators post a question and an expiry date. Minting produces equal amounts of YES and NO tokens, backed by funds committed to that market. - Outcome tokens are implemented as fungible KCC20 tokens with additional voting logic; Argent’s tooling reportedly makes it easier to express the protocol’s covenant-style logic as a sequence of states within Kaspa’s UTXO model. - Settlement: after market expiry there is a defined voting window. Token holders must vote to be eligible for payouts; the winning-side holders claim their payouts, while losing tokens may still qualify for a lottery if their holders voted with the majority. A later revision (Aug. 27) proposed burning any unclaimed winning rewards instead of redistributing them. Why Kaspa’s model matters Helfer noted the protocol’s state-based design maps naturally to Kaspa’s UTXO covenants, even though the same idea could be implemented as a single EVM program. The approach aims to keep the application ownerless—protocol rules would be enforced by on-chain covenants—and lets market participants run client-side logic that interacts with those covenants. Context and related work - Kaspa ecosystem development has also included EVM-compatible second layers. In April, Gate’s Kasplex Layer 2 integration enabled KAS transfers through the exchange; Kasplex documents describe off-chain execution with Kaspa handling transaction ordering and data availability. - The prediction-market proposal grew out of a July forum sketch by Bit Cat (July 10) and a July 11 follow-up that made voting mandatory for payouts to encourage honest reporting. Bit Cat later acknowledged the mechanism isn’t immune to manipulation and suggested that liquid markets with uncontroversial questions would be best suited to the design. - Bit Cat has framed event-linked contracts not merely as “prediction markets” (a term with gambling connotations) but as risk-management instruments—examples include a bar owner hedging against a lockdown or a winemaker protecting against an unusually hot season. He emphasized that settlement questions should be unambiguous (for example, an inflation contract could ask whether a particular CPI reading exceeds a threshold). Risks and regulation Helfer warned that smaller markets will be easier to manipulate and that “inevitably, people would lose money in this social experiment.” The design’s vulnerability to manipulation is a core challenge—one U.S. regulator response has been to impose requirements on trading venues. The CFTC has issued guidance and warnings on event contracts, including a Sept. 22 advisory reminding designated markets to list contracts that aren’t readily susceptible to manipulation. Polymarket’s regulated U.S. operations run through QCX, which the CFTC lists as a designated contract market (original designation dated July 2025). What’s next Helfer’s year-end release target remains a development plan rather than a firm launch commitment. The team appears to be continuing work on the Argentinian app mapping, covenant-state implementation, and market mechanics. If delivered, the project would be a notable experiment in embedding a permissionless, ownerless prediction-markets protocol directly into a UTXO-based base layer. Read more about Kaspa’s ecosystem developments and the ongoing design discussion on the Kaspa developer forum and the project’s X posts. Read more AI-generated news on: https://app.chaingpt.org/news