Bootstrapping New Usage with Shielded Prediction Markets on Namada

Ecosystem & Strategy Ideas & initiatives
1

Idea:
Use prediction markets; Simple, permissionless bets, to drive activity on Namada.
Think: “Will NAM be over $0.10 by August 1?” or “Will Proposal X pass?”

These markets:

  • Let users signal beliefs with capital

  • Create organic usage (speculation, hedging, signaling, fun)

  • Showcase Namada’s edge: private, on-chain bets — no public positions

Why it matters for Namada:

  • Brings in new users/builders

  • Drives both shielded and unshielded volume

  • Highlights privacy as a differentiator

How it works (today, no upgrade needed):

  • Two users agree on a bet

  • Funds go into a 2-of-3 multisig (Alice, Bob, Oracle)

  • Each pre-signs conditional transactions

  • Oracle signs the real outcome

  • Only the valid TX can be executed — winner takes all

Inspired by Bitcoin DLCs. Built on Namada’s existing tools: off-chain coordination + multisig + a signing oracle (e.g., TWAP from Osmosis or Neutron).

What I’m asking:

  • Does this sound interesting to you?

  • Would you use or help prototype something like this?

  • Any pitfalls or edge cases we’re missing?

Bonus: Could test with a Discord bot and soft incentives (“First 50 NAM bet is free”) to bootstrap usage.

Let me know if you’re in.
I’d love to hear feedback or team up on a simple proof of concept.

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2

It feels very interesting

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Thanks for your idea! It also opens the possibility of creating a private OTC market :smiley:

I have a few concerns:

  • How can we keep the oracle completely unaware of the deals? When the oracle is part of the multisig, it learns the deal amount. Shielded transactions let us hide the participants by creating new wallets, but it would be even better if everything stayed fully private.

  • What about a refund mechanism? Even if the counterparty can sign a refund transaction, it should become valid only after a specific time or block height. The counterparty could sign the refund before the deal, but it would be nicer to make the process more permissionless and less dependent on the oracle. For instance:
    namadac sign-refund --execute-after-height <future block for refund>

Overall, I like the idea of introducing smart-contract-like functionality without actually using smart contracts, but it would be great to add more privacy on the oracle side. Maybe someone here will come up with a solution!

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can Namada offer shielded multisigs? @cwgoes @tomas

@RuslanGlaznyov imo, big part of what makes this sort of thing interesting is when it’s combined with a social signal (in which case it needs to be public, so it’s okay if the oracle knows)

a public bet between known people is a signal of conviction

but i hadn’t thought of the OTC potential! which would be important if you don’t want to price signal to the broader market, but i imagine it’s enough to just break linkability by using a fresh tnam for the bet contract

there probably are other reasons to explore how the shielded pool could be used tho, and it is Namada’s core value proposition. it may be good to begin by seeing if this is a thing people will use in its simplest form

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@CryptoDruide i like the discord bot idea! what if we substituted on-chain stuff with trust assumptions initially? if there’s traction with small bets, develop the on-chain elements and lean into growth

i’m interested in

  • technical design
  • game / use-case design

i can’t commit much time (can work in short bursts)

6

Yes, but only cryptographically, which means you need to use FROST. Actually, this is a great candidate for a microgrant to build some tooling – what kind of tooling would you want to see for shielded multisigs?

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7

haven’t given it much thought, but

  • key setup & management
  • maybe some kind of signing session coordination
  • maybe some SDK support

@cwgoes would we need to build transactions differently for FROST?

thoughts, @RuslanGlaznyov?

perhaps @stellarmagnet has some ideas here