---
type: claim
domain: internet-finance
secondary_domains: [collective-intelligence]
description: "Optimism Badge Holders had lowest win rates in futarchy experiment, suggesting mechanism selects for trader skill not domain knowledge"
confidence: experimental
source: "Optimism Futarchy v1 Preliminary Findings (2025-06-12), Badge Holder performance data"
created: 2025-06-12
challenges: ["Living Agents are domain-expert investment entities where collective intelligence provides the analysis futarchy provides the governance and tokens provide permissionless access to private deal flow.md"]
---

# Domain expertise loses to trading skill in futarchy markets because prediction accuracy requires calibration not just knowledge

Optimism's futarchy experiment produced a counterintuitive finding: Badge Holders—recognized experts in Optimism governance with established track records—had the LOWEST win rates among participant cohorts. Trading skill, not domain expertise, determined outcomes.

This challenges the assumption that futarchy filters for informed participants through skin-in-the-game. If the mechanism worked by surfacing domain knowledge, Badge Holders should have outperformed. Instead, the results suggest futarchy selects for a different skill: probabilistic calibration and market timing. Knowing which projects will succeed is distinct from knowing how to translate that knowledge into profitable market positions.

Domain experts may actually be disadvantaged in prediction markets because:
1. Deep knowledge creates conviction that resists price-based updating
2. Expertise focuses on project quality, not market psychology or strategic voting patterns
3. Trading requires calibration skills (translating beliefs into probabilities) that domain work doesn't train

This has implications for futarchy's value proposition. If the mechanism doesn't leverage domain expertise better than alternatives, its advantage must come purely from incentive alignment and manipulation resistance, not from aggregating specialized knowledge. The "wisdom" in futarchy markets may be trader wisdom (risk management, position sizing, timing) rather than domain wisdom (technical assessment, ecosystem understanding).

Critical caveat: This was play-money, which may have inverted normal advantages. Real capital at risk could change the skill profile that succeeds.

## Evidence
- Badge Holders (recognized Optimism governance experts) had lowest win rates
- 430 total forecasters, 88.6% first-time participants
- Trading skill determined outcomes across participant cohorts
- Play-money environment: no real capital at risk

## Challenges
Play-money structure is the primary confound—Badge Holders may have treated the experiment less seriously than traders seeking to prove skill. Real-money markets might show different expertise advantages. Sample size for Badge Holder cohort not disclosed. The 84-day outcome window may have been too short for expert knowledge advantages to manifest.

---

### Additional Evidence (confirm)
*Source: 2026-03-21-academic-prediction-market-failure-modes | Added: 2026-03-21*

The participation concentration finding (top 50 traders = 70% of volume) supports this by showing that markets are dominated by a small group of highly active traders, suggesting trading skill and activity level matter more than broad domain knowledge distribution.

### Additional Evidence (extend)
*Source: [[2026-03-23-telegram-m3taversal-what-do-you-think-of-that-proposal-can-you-send-m]] | Added: 2026-03-23*

Rio's analysis of the Hanson proposal suggests a boundary condition: 'If it's just write papers validating what we already built, that's less compelling.' This implies that domain expertise (Hanson's futarchy knowledge) has diminishing returns once the basic mechanism is implemented, and the marginal value shifts to trading skill and market participation that generates live data rather than theoretical validation.



Relevant Notes:
- speculative markets aggregate information through incentive and selection effects not wisdom of crowds.md
- futarchy is manipulation-resistant because attack attempts create profitable opportunities for arbitrageurs.md

Topics:
- domains/internet-finance/_map
- foundations/collective-intelligence/_map
