If prediction markets harness the wisdom of crowds to forecast the future, then the future involves celebrity divorces, subversive street art, a distinct lack of aliens, and, inevitably, endless Elon Musk social media posts. Here are some of the quirkiest markets attracting attention this week.
Will the US Finally Admit Aliens Exist?
Forget elections and economic forecasts. Some prediction-market traders are interested in a rather bigger question: Are we alone in the universe?
One of Polymarket’s long-running contracts asks whether the US government will officially come clean about the existence of extraterrestrials before 2027.
The market is not new, but it has attracted some serious volume in the past week. Recent tracking shows $425,000 traded over 24 hours, with over $78 million in cumulative trading volume across its various deadlines.
However, traders currently put the chances of an announcement before year-end at just 2%, which means a close encounter of the third kind is still a long shot of the first order.
Will Nvidia’s CEO Get Divorced?
On Sunday (Nov. 8), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sent an extraordinary message to his employees in which he admitted being unfaithful to his wife. Worse, it turns out Huang’s sidepiece is a suspected Chinese spy!
What this means for Nvidia’s company secrets or even national security is anyone’s guess, although Polymarket traders are more interested in whether Huang and his wife, Lori, will divorce or announce their intention to separate before December 31.
The market attracted more than $60,000 in trading after Huang’s somewhat sheepish admission.
How Many Times Will Elon Musk Tweet?
For anyone who believes the world’s richest man spends too much time on his own social media platform, prediction-market traders have devised a way to measure precisely how much.
Contracts covering Musk’s posting activity between Nov. 3 and Nov. 10 have generated approximately $1.4 million in trading volume.
The leading prediction Monday (Nov. 9) was between 260 and 279 posts during the seven-day period, with traders assigning that outcome a probability of around 38%.
Musk tweets went into overdrive in the leadup to the mid-terms – unsurprising, since he reportedly plowed $400 million into supporting Republican candidates. Although it would be wrong to suggest that he has been obsessing about the results ever since.
Recent posts on X take in everything from Grok’s AI performance, Starlink rescues, orbital computing, the future of Cybertruck production, Dave Chappelle’s comedy, and our favorite:
Will Banksy Strike Again?
Finally, there’s a contract for anyone who fancies themselves an expert on the habits of subversive street artists.
Polymarket traders can bet on whether Banksy will create a new mural or street artwork before December 31.
The market, which originally opened in June, requires a qualifying new work rather than the discovery of an old one.
It has attracted only a few thousand dollars in trading, making it small change compared with the platform’s more popular curiosities.
Whether the anonymous artist will oblige before the year is out is anyone’s guess, but as the man said himself: there’s always hope.
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