Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed his excitement for prediction markets in his newly published article titled “From Prediction Markets to Information Finance.”
In the article, Buterin describes prediction markets as one of the most exciting applications on Ethereum, touting its potential to reshape multiple industries beyond traditional uses like election prediction. This vision, which he calls “information finance,” leverages blockchain technology to create trust-based solutions that could transform areas like social media, science, and governance.
Buterin, a strong supporter of Polymarket , a platform that offers prediction markets to participants and informative insights to the broader public, sees great value in prediction markets serving as reliable, decentralized sources of information. While many people view prediction markets as mere gambling, he argues that the model has much deeper potential. “For many people, prediction markets are just about guessing on elections… if it helps people have fun, it’s great, but fundamentally it’s no more interesting than buying random coins on pump.fun,” Buterin writes, explaining why his interest in prediction markets goes far beyond entertainment value.
Buterin believes that today’s prediction markets are already useful for providing insight into real-world events and trends, but he sees them as part of a broader concept he calls “information finance.” According to Buterin, this concept could create new, trusted frameworks for processing information across a variety of industries by leveraging the transparency and security of blockchain. Buterin envisions better implementation of news platforms, scientific research, governance, and other public resources by implementing the decentralized, information-driven model of prediction markets.
Buterin argues that by using Ethereum as a foundation, information finance can solve trust issues and provide scalable solutions that provide verifiable and actionable data to users.
*This is not investment advice.