In the hyper-capitalist world in which we live, it can often feel like anything and everything is at risk of being monetized. NFTs are just code-designated image files that—for whatever reason—are worth millions of dollars. The sharing economy encourages Americans to make money off the things they already own—their houses and cars. The influencer lifestyle lets people use social media to monetize their daily activities via highly curated posts. Now, the users of various prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi appear to be scraping the bottom of the monetization barrel. The newest way to make money online? Predicting the words a person will say.
Yes, there is apparently a new way to make money online, and it is to accurately predict the words that a person will say during a speech or a live appearance. Bloomberg reports on this terrible/bizzare/hilarious new phenomenon, which it describes as “part of a niche category [of prediction market]” where the “outcome isn’t tied to earnings, price moves or sports games, but to what people say in some public forum.”
Bloomberg notes a recent example of this involving Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s CEO. During the company’s recent earnings call, Armstrong finished up by uttering a select number of DeFi terms: “I was a little distracted because I was tracking the prediction market about what Coinbase will say on their next earnings call,” Armstrong said at the end of the call. “I just want to add here the words Bitcoin, Ethereum, blockchain, staking, and Web3 — to make sure we get those in before the end of the call.”
Bloomberg notes that, across various prediction market platforms, approximately $84,000 was bet on whether certain words like “stablecoin,” “margin,” and “institution,” would be spoken during the call.
It’s unclear how widely this sort of thing is happening right now. A recent mention market post on Kalshi, for instance, revolved around whether Taylor Swift would say “Wedding” 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 lighthearted, offhand way, referencing online discussion around the earnings call.”
