InfoFi: Emerging Speculation Markets
Key Insights
- Information Finance (InfoFi) is an emerging category of applications that introduces tradable markets that enable financial speculation on exotic, non-price data points.
- These applications aren’t just a new avenue for financial speculation. InfoFi markets support information discovery based on the financial activity occurring within them.
- Polymarket has become an InfoFi mainstay, serving as a lens into the real-time probabilities of real-life events. The concept of Multiverse Finance could be Polymarket's next evolution.
- InfoFi is expanding beyond prediction markets, as applications like Noise, Ethos, and Narrative support information discovery via tradable markets for mindshare, reputation, and quantitative metrics.
- InfoFi can be intentional, where the desired information to be elicited can be determined preemptively before a new market is created. Emergent speculation markets may lead to unexpected information discoveries.
Primer
During his 3.5-year tenure at Messari, Patryk contributed across Messari's Diligence, Protocol, and Enterprise research teams. As Research Manager, his primary focus was on Layer-1 and Layer-2 infrastructure and the DeFi ecosystems atop them.
Alice is a Research Analyst on the Protocol Services team. She previously worked as a Research Analyst at The Block and was an Investment Intern at Variant Fund. Alice graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied Economics.
Armita is a protocol researcher with a robust background in technology and blockchain. Before her role at Messari, she distinguished herself as a tech entrepreneur, executive, and advisor for various blockchain startups. Armita holds two master's degrees, one in Computer Engineering and another in Business Management, as well as a double major undergraduate degree in Physics and Pure Mathematics.