In the instability of global finance, where macroeconomic winds gust from inflation hawks to geopolitical winds being ahead is not simply smart it is survival. Enter prediction markets; those crystal ball-esque betting mechanisms powered by the blockchain; available on everything from predicting the outcome of elections to predicting extreme weather events. But prediction markets are not your grandfather’s bookie slips. Armed with decentralized oracles combined with developing compliance frameworks, they are developing a macro narrative around crypto. One where data driven intelligence is accountable, and speculations create strategic value. Learn more about prediction markets in our previous blog here.
At MEXC, we are always leading the front of this continuum, enabling traders to have (almost) uninterrupted access to all the tokens and tools that will drive futures trading. As we begin to glimpse what 2025 holds, we may potentially see a stagnant post-pandemic recovery, the AI revolution in policy, and continuous progress towards regulatory clarity; let’s pull back the layers of what prediction markets are becoming and how they converge with oracles, underpinned by compliance structures, to develop our framework for how we will think about predicting (and profiting off of) the future.
1.Prediction Markets: Place a Bet That They Will
Picture this: Mid-2024, and tension is rising between large economies over trade tariffs. While traditional analysts review spreadsheets, you will be betting tokens on a platform like Polymarket about whether those tariffs will reach 20% by the end of the calendar year. Your bet is not just a lucky guess, it is based on crowd wisdom that is cumulatively derived from thousands of players around the world. This is the power of these markets… They leverage collective intelligence, giving everyone a market-based estimate of probability that is more precise than any analyst or survey.
Although they date back to early experiments like Intrade in the 2000s, prediction markets have really begun to take off in the crypto space. Prediction markets like Augur (built on Ethereum) and, most recently, Azuro on Polygon provide a forecasting tool. By Q3 2025, quickly rising to $10 billion annually (DeFiLlama data), trading volumes on these markets erased almost every micro stock exchange; why? Macro uncertainty. Central banks going back and forth on cutting rates amid persistently high inflation (3.2% U.S. CPI in August ’25), a black swan with the most recent EU energy crisis, and now on a macro scale, people are looking for something better.
There is much more than simple speculation. Prediction Markets excel in macro narratives because they express timely sentiment via pricing. For example, in the 2024 U.S. elections, Polymarket’s odds on Trump’s comeback were all over the place during and after each debate, often even ahead of traditional bookies by days. This isn’t gambling – it’s granular economics. When traders are participating, they are using stablecoins or a native token to create truly liquid pricing. Pricing signifies much more than just hype – it represents expectations that are hedged against with pricing.
For MEXC users, it is easy to define on-ramps: Don’t go anywhere but go ahead and list your favorite prediction token, spot trade it, futures trade it, and now you can easily hedge for volatility in macro issues without leaving our ecosystem.
Nevertheless, for all their premonition ability, prediction markets suffered from a major flaw: isolationism. After all, how do you confirm that the tariff bill will even pass? Short answer: Oracles.
2.Oracles, the truth-tellers of the Blockchain
If prediction markets are the brain, oracles are the central nervous system providing verifiable data from off-chain to an on-chain smart contract. Without oracles, betting on a super bowl winner or FED rate hike is vaporware national champions. Settlements either stall, there are disputes, and trust erodes in the betting market space. Chainlink has been the kingpin in the oracle definition since 2017; 2025 is a milestone to take seriously! Now that its CCIP (Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol) is operational across over 15 blockchains, Chainlink is no longer limited to simply feeding price feeds. It is operating hybrid oracles that aggregate macroeconomic indicators, such as GDP revisions from the IMF, or through partnership with Witnet using satellite imagery to measure crop yield productivity. To put numbers to work, Chainlink’s network secured over $2 trillion in on-chain DeFi value last year, and volumes are flowing into prediction markets.
Take Gnosis, another oracle leader integrated with MEXC-listed tokens. Their Conditional Tokens framework allows markets to settle on the basis of oracle-attested events, e.g., “Will Bitcoin reach $150k by December?” But the most important difference is decentralization. There is no single point of failure, and your portfolio won’t be wiped out by an oracle hack, as in the Ronin bridge hack of 2023. In a macro sense, this resistance is priceless. During the 2025 yen carry trade unwind, oracle-fed prediction markets on platforms like Hedgehog predicted a 15% JPY depreciation weeks in advance, which allowed traders to price in the carry trade decline ahead of it being reported on Bloomberg terminals.
Oracles do have issues, and the “garbage in, garbage out” conundrum applies to oracles, as well: your input data sources can be biased. That’s where compliance comes in, so that oracles (and their associated markets) will always play nice as we work towards trust, not chaos.
3.Compliance: No Longer the Wild West
The perception of crypto’s macro narrative has long been influenced by the specter of regulation, culminating in the question: Will the SEC crackdowns destroy innovation? Fast forward to September 2025 and the sun is shining brighter. The EU’s MiCA framework has been fully implemented with a requirement that oracle providers and platforms for predictions operating within Europe will need KYC. In the U.S., the FIT21 Act, which passed with surprising bipartisan support earlier in the year, created a safe harbor for decentralized markets, provided sufficient AML checks are completed.
For prediction markets specifically, compliance doesn’t dampen the appetite, it accelerates gains. Existing models of compliance now integrate geofencing and identity verification like Kalshi and the crypto-native model Drift on Solana, increasing access and institutional participation. The compliant hedge fund volumes have increased by 300% year-over-year according to the recent Messari report. Oracles have not been left behind because Chainlink has added a compliance layer to their DONs (Decentralized Oracle Networks) using zero-knowledge proofs to access data feeds, therefore ensuring regulators see the aggregate data without doxxing users.
This thawing of the regulations is tangible and relates to macro storytelling. Prediction markets, previously seen as a fringe product, are now considered policy tools. Articulating one possible sentiment expressed in the whole body of text, the World Bank implemented a market linked to oracle technology in Q2 of ’25 to model famine risk in sub-Saharan Africa, taking advantage of blockchain technology, like crypto, with all transactions being overseen by the United Nations. This has the effect of guaranteeing that these transactions are not just rogue operators, but an established instrument that will lessen systemic risks that are created in the world when it faces macro shocks like the U.S.-China chip wars taking place now.
If it isn’t clear, at MEXC we are all in on the compliant evolution. Our exchange, for starters, has industry-leading KYC integration with Sumsub and allows for over 20 oracles and prediction tokens; it sure is fun trading them with no fee spots or up to 200x leverage on perps; because who wants to predict if you can’t drive your own prediction?
4.That takes us to the Macro Mosaic: Narratives Weaving Wealth
So how does this fit into the overall broader macro narrative in crypto? It is quite simple;
Prediction markets + oracles + compliance = a decentralized oracle for answering humanity’s biggest question.
In an age of fragmented information, fake news, echo chambers, algorithmic bias, etc; these sources aggregate truth in a decentralized way, at scale. For example, what if an oracle made a market of wagers based on countries signing climate accords at COP30, and Chainlink oracles verified emissions data with MiCA guaranteeing compliance. Or what if there was a market to hedge signals of recession, where great probabilities from the crowd… like prediction markets used in NBER, beat models.
The statistics support the hype. A study from Oxford in 2025 concluded that prediction markets were 20% more accurate on predicting geopolitical events than expert panels. And with the crypto market cap rising over $3.5 trillion (because of ETFs), this is a space booming: Prediction protocols alone account for over $500M in total value locked, according to DefiLlama. All the macro trends are favorable, absolutely. Particularly the intersection of AI (i.e., Fetch.ai’s oracles are predicting model outputs) and the blurring lines of Web3 gaming and real world bets create a new modeling structure; we are entering the foreshadow economy.
But there are risks. Centralized oracles could lead to censoring; and over-reach by compliance could rip apart DeFi’s ethos of borderless payment rails. The emerging narrative is balance. Innovators like API3 are experimenting with fully decentralized oracles, and regulators like the FCA are leading the charge to create “sandbox” markets in which the status quo exists alongside speculative markets. That means the opportunity emerges to become a trader: buy the dip on oracle tokens during periods of FUD, or look to long prediction plays before major events like the 2026 midterms.
5.Catch the wave: Turning Foresight Into Your Next Trade
Prediction markets are no longer just an interesting footnote in the crypto world. They are quickly emerging as one of the most valuable tools traders can leverage to stay ahead of macro shifts. Prediction markets, when combined with oracles and done in compliance with established regulations, can turn uncertainty into opportunity and market noise into actionable informational signals.
What we do at MEXC is extremely simple, we are trying to capacity you to access this future of trading. Whether that’s exchanging prediction market tokens, staking, or participating in the wider ecosystem of decentralized intelligence and/or tokens like LINK, we provide the liquidity, the functionality, and the global access you need to engage with confidence.
Because here’s the thing… The future isn’t just something you wait for, it’s something you engage with, shape, and trade. And with MEXC, you don’t have to do it alone. With ultra-low fees and deep liquidity, whether a first-time beginner or a seasoned trader, MEXC provides a platform for you to ride their new foresight economy.
Now, the ultimate question is, what’s your next move? Will you position yourself early on the outcome of the next election, hedge for political change, or simply ride the momentum of fast-growing oracle projects? Whoever you want to bet on, MEXC is where foresight meets opportunity.
Disclaimer: This content is for educational and reference purposes only and does not constitute any investment advice. Digital asset investments carry high risk. Please evaluate carefully and assume full responsibility for your own decisions.
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