Let's all play the "Steem prediction game"

"The right metric for intelligence is probably the ability to predict the future. You're as intelligent as you can predict the future well." - Elon Musk

• Corollary: If Steem wants to demonstrate, "proof of brain", Steem needs to be able to predict the future well.

A new kind of prediction market

Three years ago and probably longer, I was already thinking of using @null beneficiaries to drive a new sort of prediction technique.

For example, I could issue a post saying: "Will the BTC closing price be over/under $20,000 on October 9 at 00:00 UTC?", then I could reply with two comments: "1. Vote here for 'over $20,000'" and "2. 'Vote here for under $20,000'", both with 100% null beneficiary settings. That way, people could collect curation rewards for their votes without being spooked off at the thought of giving the pollster author rewards. (BTC at 20K... isn't that cute?)

It took me a while, but I recently started doing something with that idea. It's called the "Steem prediction game", and in recent weeks I've applied it for predicting sports contests. Then, this weekend Claude and I slapped together a program to use the same technique for making crypto price predictions.

If cultivated, I think this could, conceivably, grow into a new form of prediction market. Just like existing prediction markets, any question that can be answered with a yes/no answer (or even a multiple choice answer) could be handled this way. But Steem can power our prediction market with curation rewards, instead of gambling. Simplistically, it goes like this:

1. Create a post with a yes/no (or multiple choice) answer. Burn 100% of author rewards.
2. Create a reply for each possible answer. Burn 100% of author rewards.
3. People express their opinion by voting for the comment that they think will be correct.
4. After the correct result is known, a high-powered voter upvotes the correct reply (and optionally, downvotes incorrect replies).

Implications

• There is an infinite number of questions that could be asked, and the process can happen through automation.
  • sports, crypto, finance, economics, business, politics, etc. Things that interest real people.
• A STEEM/SBD sink is created for inflation reduction.
• Voters who guess first and guess correctly can get the highest curation rewards.
• Automation can be set up so that voters can compete to be the best predictors, and blog about their competition and results.
• Reporting can also be set up to publish the predictions, and prediction trends over time.
• When the blockchain gets good at making predictions, people will refer to it on other platforms - the way that they now refer to election polling results or polymarket contracts.
• It's a low effort form of entertainment that can bring eyeballs to the blockchain.

I think the main limitation is that the predicted event probably needs to be less than 6 ¹/₂ days into the future.

Why should the ecosystem support this sort of activity?

Bottom line, Steem's best chance at competing with other crypto platforms is by harnessing its unique capabilities. As far as I can tell, only Steem and its derivative chains would be able to establish these sorts of prediction markets. We can pursue things like defi, NFTs, and so on, but we'd be an "also ran" for the foreseeable future.

If we want our blockchain to stand out in a crowd of thousands, it has to showcase something unique. I believe this prediction protocol could be one such something.

For testing purposes, I have scheduled a job to run daily via the @social account in order to let people predict the closing price of TRX, ETH, and BTC. Check it out and let me know what you think. If there's any support for the idea, maybe I'll set it up to run from a dedicated account and start towards follow-on reporting. (for the record, I have no idea who owns the @social account, but it's private posting key is available to the public, so it's convenient for testing things like this.)

But if you're talking about automated posting, then isn't it spammy?

No, in my opinion, it's not. It's asking questions and collecting opinions from real people. As long as the questions and answers are interesting to real people with real eyeballs, this is exactly the sort of thing that social media is supposed to do. Also, burning 100% of the author rewards mitigates the automation factor.

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Thoughts?