What New Use-Cases Will Data Streams Bring to Prediction Markets?

It's about to get very interesting.

Prediction markets just had their breakout year. Polymarket processed over $20 billion in volume, with no signs of slowing down. People are clearly hungry for ways to put money behind their opinions on everything from elections to economic outcomes.

But we’re still early.

The platforms that exist today prove the demand, but they’re constrained by the same fundamental limitation. The markets live onchain, but almost everything else happens somewhere offchain. Events occur in the real world, oracles report the outcomes, and then contracts can finally settle. The next evolution of prediction markets is about bringing the data itself entirely onchain.

Somnia Data Streams is infrastructure that lets applications subscribe to onchain data and get automatic updates when state changes. Instead of constantly polling the blockchain or waiting for periodic oracle posts, applications receive a continuous stream of information as events happen.

For prediction markets, this changes everything. Markets can subscribe to live event data, update odds in real time as situations develop, and settle bets instantly when outcomes are verified. The data feeding these markets isn’t coming from a trusted third party anymore. It’s published directly onchain by the source.

Let’s take a moment to imagine some of the new markets that can be created with this new breakthrough.

Content Performance and Creator Markets

Content creators generate data about views, engagement, and audience growth. When this data is onchain, markets can form around how content performs.

A creator might launch a video and immediately have markets around whether it hits certain view thresholds, engagement rates, or subscriber growth. These markets could get very active when particular content creators are having a feud or some type of drama. Considering that some of the top Twitch streamers have tens of thousands of people watching them live at any given moment, these are very realistic scenarios.

This extends to longer-term creator success. Markets could form around whether a channel reaches certain milestones by specific dates, or how a creator’s audience will grow over time. Settlement can happen automatically based on verifiable onchain metrics, but platforms would need to ensure that these metrics are verified. In this example, there is a possibility for content creators to skew the metrics with bots, so there will need to be some checks on the platform level. Perhaps only platforms that are provably fair would be considered for these markets.

Racing Data Enables Granular Markets

Racing generates enormous amounts of structured data. Lap times, sector splits, position changes, pit stop timing. When this data streams onchain as the race happens, you can build markets around all of it.

Traditional racing bets let you pick the winner or maybe the podium. With live data, you can bet on sector times, overtakes in specific laps, pit strategies, or whether the leader will maintain their gap over the next five laps. Each lap creates fresh betting opportunities as the data updates.

When the race ends, every market settles instantly based on the onchain record. This is possible because the timing data was published continuously, and contracts executed based on verified information. The people who collect the data and put it onchain can also monetize it, which encourages even more data, which will lead to even deeper markets and more complex bets.

Financial Betting Markets With Instant Settlement

Financial prediction markets currently rely on price feeds posted periodically by oracles. This works for daily or hourly settlements but limits the types of markets you can offer.

Continuous price data streaming onchain enables markets on intraday price movements, volatility over specific time windows, or relative performance between assets in real time. A market might offer positions on whether an asset will move more than 2% in the next hour, or whether one stock will outperform another before market close.

These markets can also settle instantly when conditions are met. If you bet that volatility will spike above a threshold and it does, your position settles immediately based on the onchain price data.

This can extend to the world of crypto as well. Onchain governance already generates verifiable data about proposals, votes, and outcomes. This data can power prediction markets about what will pass, how different communities will vote, or when proposals will reach quorum. This might even create some excitement around DAO governance and encourage more participation from token holders.

Markets Beyond What We Can Predict

Once infrastructure exists to stream any kind of event data onchain and let markets subscribe to it, prediction markets can form around anything measurable. A few potential examples could be supply chain milestones, weather patterns, social media trends, scientific research outcomes, or real estate price movements.

The examples that we shared today are merely scratching the surface of what’s possible, but we’re curious what ideas you could come up with. What sectors or activities would you like to place wagers on, but can’t with current prediction market infrastructure.

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