Jupiter Exchange Has Launched Its Prediction Market On Wednesday.

Solana-based decentralized exchange aggregator Jupiter plans to roll out its new native predictions market offering that it’s building with Kalshi before the end of the year.

Jupiter on Wednesday announced it had just launched the beta version of its Jupiter Prediction Market. Kalshi will provide liquidity for Jupiter’s new offering, which allows users to bet on the outcome of events.

Why Jupiter entered the prediction markets race

Kash Dhanda, chief operating officer at Jupiter Exchange, told Cointelegraph that Jupiter’s goal is to give users a wide variety of offerings under a single platform, and that prediction markets would also allow them to attract more users. 

“Prediction Markets represent a powerful evolution in the types of assets that are available onchain, and we’re thrilled to partner with Kalshi to bring them to Solana,” Dhanda said.

Dhanda said prediction markets are growing at a rapid rate, which will lead to the platform acquiring new users.

As of the third quarter, Jupiter had 8.4 million active users, up 5% from the previous quarter, according to the Q3 tokenholder report.

“As our prediction markets grow, so does our reach, our cross-product synergy, and our revenue, all of which is long-term beneficial to JUP tokenholders,” Dhanda said when asked how the new prediction market will benefit tokenholders.

Dhanada said Jupiter will take user feedback to improve the product. Further, he said that the prediction market will be fully launched sometime in the fourth quarter.

“We’ll keep iterating on the product and increasing limits in line with feedback we receive — more markets will be added and we’ll be gearing up for a full launch in Q4 itself,” Dhanda said.

Prediction market in beta phase

The beta version currently only offers one market, which is about which Formula One driver will win the upcoming Mexico Grand Prix.

Global maximum contracts are set at 100,000, and individual positions are being restricted to 1,000 contracts.

The inaugural market has amassed $120,000 in volume since its launch on Wednesday. Source: Jupiter Exchange

Currently, the inaugural test market’s volume has exceeded the $100,000 milestone, with F1 driver Max Verstappen leading the pack, with nearly 46% of users predicting the Dutch-Belgian race car driver to win the event, with British race car driver Lando Norris coming second, with 27% odds of him winning the event.

Institutions’ appetite for prediction markets has increased

Polymarket and Kalshi, the two leading prediction market platforms, have seen their valuations soar as volumes on their respective platforms have increased over the last few months. 

Related: From South Park to Wall Street: Are prediction markets going mainstream?

On Oct. 7, Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the world’s largest stock exchange, NYSE, invested a sum of $2 billion into Polymarket, which valued the company at $9 billion.

Meanwhile, Kalshi raised $300 million in its Series D funding round. The firm was valued at $5 billion, and saw participation from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, CapitalG, Coinbase Ventures, General Catalyst and Spark Capital.

These investments come at a time when the prediction market industry, as a whole, is growing rapidly, with weekly trading volume across platforms hitting an all-time high, reaching $2.03 billion for the week ended Oct. 13, according to a Dune dashboard.

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