Two families were screened: smaller prediction markets where the longshot strategy could run with less competition, and “be the house” vaults on smaller perp exchanges.
House vaults
Exchange market-making vault (benchmark)+15%
Smaller exchange’s stablecoin vault+11%
Stablecoin lending (typical)+6%
A smaller exchange’s vault advertised 42% — a spike; its twelve-month average was 11%. A brand-new venue’s pools showed 35–200%+, driven by launch incentives and highly unstable.
Smaller prediction markets
Total value locked: the market leader holds over $300M; the next ones $21M, $10M and $3M, the rest under $2.5M. What their own public APIs showed:
- one venue traded about $16k in 24 hours across all its markets;
- another showed under $600k of lifetime volume across all active markets;
- headline “billions traded” figures did not match the visible flow — much of it is likely incentive farming.
A maker edge needs retail buyers. What these venues really offer is incentives — rebates, rewards and pre-token points — which cannot be backtested.