Introduction

PolyPOP turns any real-world question into a live, onchain prediction market. This guide explains how markets are priced, how to trade and provide liquidity, and how outcomes are resolved. It is written for both traders and developers integrating the protocol.

A PolyPOP market is a binary market: every question resolves to either YES or NO. Each market is an independent smart contract that mints two outcome tokens, holds an automated market maker (AMM) for them, and pays out in USDC once the result is known.

Unlike an order book, there is no counterparty to match. You always trade against a shared liquidity pool, so a market can be created and traded instantly with no waiting for a maker on the other side.

How it works

When a market is created, the initiator seeds it with USDC. That collateral mints an equal number of YES and NO tokens, which are deposited into a constant-product pool. Traders buy the side they believe in; the AMM adjusts the price along the curve as one side is bought up.

Because YES and NO are always backed 1:1 by collateral, holding one YES and one NO is always worth exactly 1 USDC. This invariant is what lets the AMM quote a fair, self-balancing price and what guarantees winners can be paid at settlement.