In an era of curated platforms where operators decide what gets listed and who earns from it, a different architecture is taking shape on BNB Smart Chain. Halley isn't here to build a better venue. It's here to replace the venue entirely - with a network anyone can build on and everyone can earn from. We sat down with the team to talk about what's really happening under the hood.
Cassian Roe (Interviewer): Prediction markets have been around for a while. What was still broken badly enough to make you build something new?
Halley: The mechanism was never the problem. Prediction markets work - the track record on accuracy is real. What's broken is the shape. Every platform that exists today is a venue: a company in the middle that decides what gets listed, holds your funds, and keeps the economics. The people who actually build the audiences, do the research, bring the crowds - they get almost nothing.
We built from the opposite direction: start with the open, non-custodial shape, and hold it.
Cassian Roe: So what is Halley, precisely?
Halley: The open prediction market network. Anyone opens a market in about sixty seconds for about a dollar - no approval, no liquidity to put up. They set a resolution fee between 1% and 10%. Their crowd comes and trades. When the market settles, 80% of that fee goes to the creator. The protocol takes 20%.
Trading is free. No protocol fee on any trade. The resolution fee is charged once, at settlement - paid only by those who were correct, and only on their gain.
The shares are ERC-1155 tokens in your own wallet from the moment your order fills. The protocol never holds your position. The contracts are deployed and audited on BNB Smart Chain - no upgrade path can move your funds or override a settled outcome.
Cassian Roe: Let's be precise about what "your gain" means. How does the fee actually work?
Halley: This is the part that matters most, so let's be exact.
Every outcome share is worth $1 if it's the correct outcome and $0 if not. The market prices each outcome continuously - that price is the crowd's live probability estimate. When the market settles, the resolution fee applies only to the difference between what the correct outcome was priced at when the market closed and its full $1 redemption value. That difference is the settlement gain.
A concrete example. Five-outcome market: which chain leads DEX volume in Q4 2027? Resolution fee 5%. At market close, Base is priced at $0.15 - the long shot. Base wins.
The settlement gain is $0.85. The effective fee is 5% of $0.85, which is 4.25% of face value. Each correct share redeems at $0.9575. On a $100,000 market, that means $4,250 in total fees - creator receives $3,400, protocol receives $850.
If the favourite had resolved at $0.35, the gain would have been $0.65, the effective fee 3.25%, and the creator would have received $2,600. The fee scales with the surprise. Markets that generate real information value generate more for the creator who built them.
Cassian Roe: Who decides what the correct outcome actually is?
Halley: When the event closes, independent Market Managers verify and announce the correct outcome. If they can't reach a result, community resolution opens - community members can announce it themselves. That's the process, and it runs in the open. Resolution is the open problem this whole category shares; we didn't make it disappear, we made it public - independent Managers first, then a permissionless community backstop no operator can override.
Cassian Roe: What does the Halley Market token do?
Halley: It is the platform token, and its role is bonding. Community resolution runs on it - to announce an outcome in the community phase, you post the token as collateral. That puts demand for the token in step with how much the network is actually used, rather than resting on a promise.
Cassian Roe: What's the one market type that makes people stop and think differently about what this is?
Halley: The mash-up market.
What happens first this Saturday - Real Madrid scores, Bitcoin crosses $100,000, or Taylor Swift posts on Instagram? One market. Multiple domains. One on-chain outcome.
No curated venue can host this. Their architecture forces each event through its own approval and listing process. On Halley, outcomes are arbitrary labelled options inside a single market. The protocol doesn't care where the truth comes from - only that it's publicly verifiable. Up to ten outcomes per market. Three separate audiences drawn onto one book - and one resolution fee, to the creator who opened it.
That's the thing that can't be copied. It's not a feature. It's a structural consequence of being an open network instead of a curated venue.
Cassian Roe: The obvious objection. An open network where anyone can open a market is also a network where a market can open to no one - and a book with no traders is a dead page. Isn't cold-start liquidity the thing that sinks this?
Halley: It's the honest bear case, and we won't wave it away. Today, while the network is young, our books are thinner than the incumbents' - early innings, and we say so. But look at where liquidity comes from. A curated venue lists a market, then goes hunting for a crowd to fill it. On Halley, the market is opened by the person who already has the crowd - that's the whole reason they open it. The demand arrives with the supply, from the same person, in the same motion. That doesn't repeal cold-start. It changes who solves it: not a platform guessing at demand, but a creator who already owns it - and keeps 80% of the fee for bringing it.
Cassian Roe: If you had to give someone one reason to open a market today, what is it?
Halley: You already have the crowd. You've spent years building an audience that argues about what happens next. Every take, every prediction, every debate you've sparked - none of it has generated revenue for you. On Halley, you open a market on it in sixty seconds, point your crowd at it, and keep 80% of the fee when it settles. On liquidity you never put up.
It's your market. It's a permanent page, not a post that scrolls away. And the protocol can't close it.
Make your call. halley.market
A note on protocol parameters
The configuration values and defaults behind the process described here reflect current default settings. These parameters are designed to be adjustable within defined bounds as the network matures.
Halley is open settlement infrastructure on BNB Smart Chain. The protocol is governed by code. The rules can't move.
Predict the return.
"Code doesn't compromise. Centralised platforms do." - An exclusive interview with the Halley team