Can BET based on Solana become a challenger to Polymarket?

Author: William M. Peaster, Bankless; Translation: Wuzhu, Golden Finance

Due to the groundbreaking success of Polymarket, everyone is closely following Decentralizationprediction market this year.

Although Polymarket is the leader in the field, in the excitement of the 2024 presidential election, its monthly volume, active users, and unclosed position contract statistics are currently approaching historical highs, but there are also other participants worth following.

If you are a Solana user, then you should check out BET!

Last week, the popular Solana decentralized exchange Drift announced the launch of BET, which stands for ‘Bullish on Everything’. It is a capital-efficient prediction market built on the Drift protocol.

What is the grand vision? Provide a prediction market, where users can leverage Solana’s signature speed and low cost to profit from their underlying positions before the event results are announced.

In addition, BET has also done a great job in terms of Token support. Although Polymarket focuses on trading with USDC, BET supports trading with over 30 different cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins and Solana liquidity staking tokens (LST).

From the beginning, BET has launched markets centered around the upcoming US elections, such as ‘Will Kamala Harris win the general election in 2024?’ Looking ahead, Drift will add more market categories such as sports and move towards completely permissionless markets.

That being said, if you are interested in trying out these initial markets yourself, please go to app.drift.trade/bet and connect your Solana Wallet. At this point, you will need to fund and create an account. Choose your preferred deposit method and approve the account creation, with a cost of about 0.03 SOL.

Afterwards, you can click on one of the available markets on the BET platform to learn more. First, take note of the market’s ‘Settlement Date’ so you know how long it will last. Then go to the ‘Markets’ tab and choose ‘Bet Yes’ or ‘Bet No’ based on your prediction.

Now it’s time to determine your trading scale. In the trading interface, use the “cost per share” indicator to enter the number of shares you want to acquire or not to help you make a decision. Once completed, the interface will display additional information, such as your potential profit and how much FUEL you will receive.

If everything looks good, press the final “BET” button and complete the purchase transaction with your Wallet. That’s it!

After locking your position, you can use the “Positions” tab at the bottom of the market interface to monitor the performance of your bet or close it early before the settlement date. Here, you can also find the “Balance” tab, which is used to deposit, withdraw, exchange, or transfer your assets as needed.

You can use BET to do some more advanced things, such as placing limit orders. Here are some other services you might be interested in, like stake DRIFT to earn extra FUEL. However, the above practice shows that even just the basic knowledge here is simple, understandable, and impressive.

Of course, Polymarket has already set the blueprint for how on-chain prediction market can gain wide popularity; the current question is whether BET can achieve (or surpass) the success of Polymarket by following a similar strategy and incorporating its own features.