Pred has opened public access after an invite-only beta, giving sports traders a Web3 alternative before the 2026 FIFA World Cup begins on June 11. The Base network exchange is aiming at soccer volume first, then year-round sports markets.
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Pred opened public access on June 4 after eight weeks in private beta, with the FIFA World Cup now days away. The company said more than 300 beta users made over 100,000 trades, mostly across soccer markets, while notional volume reached almost $5 million.
Amit Mahensaria, CEO and co-founder of Pred, said big events can bring new users into trading platforms fast. He pointed to the 2024 US election as proof, but said sports can create a more lasting habit because matches keep coming.
“Big events bring people in, and the 2024 US election showed how fast that can happen,” Mahensaria said. “But an election resolves once. You take a position, it settles, and there’s no reason to come back until the next cycle. The World Cup runs for a month. Every match, every session, every goal reprices the book in real time, and that builds a trading habit rather than a one-off.”
The comparison with election prediction markets fits the product. Polymarket and other event contract platforms drew heavy attention during the 2024 US election cycle, but sports offers daily liquidity, live pricing, and repeat trading. Pred wants that rhythm, not one burst of attention.
Pred runs on Base, the Coinbase layer 2 blockchain network. Traders match positions against each other through an on-chain order book, with deposits and settlement in USDC. Mahensaria said that structure can help reduce trust concerns because “positions settle on-chain in USDC, funds stay in your wallet, and the order book is open to see.”
Pred is not trying to look like a standard sportsbook. It focuses on sports-native trading markets, including 15-minute in-game markets, live moneyline markets, session markets, and 1UP or 2UP formats that close when a team reaches a set goal lead.
The World Cup gives Pred a strong launch window, but Mahensaria said the product does not depend on one tournament. “Sports don’t have a post-event cliff,” he said, because domestic leagues, the Premier League, La Liga, the Champions League, and the NBA can all keep volume alive after the final.
Pred also sees its short-duration markets as easy to carry into regular league play. Mahensaria said formats such as “15-minute markets, live moneyline, session markets” can run daily across different leagues, giving June and July users somewhere to keep trading in August.
The counterparty setup is the main difference from a sportsbook. Traditional operators set prices and often take the other side of player bets. Pred says it never trades against users and instead lets independent liquidity providers quote both sides.
Mahensaria described that as the core of the model, saying a two-sided market “doesn’t need a house” but needs independent liquidity. “The counterparty is another trader, never the platform, so there’s no conflict between us and the people trading on the book,” he said.
Thin markets still need enough incentive for liquidity providers. Pred plans to let pricing handle that. Mahensaria said wider spreads can make smaller markets worth quoting, with liquidity drawn toward opportunity instead of being assigned by the platform.
Mahensaria summed up the pitch by saying Pred is “the exchange I wanted as a trader,” built with “the UX and speed of a sportsbook” and “the pricing and transparency of an on-chain exchange.”
The public version is the V2 product. Pred said developers rebuilt it after more than 300 user interviews during beta.
Pred sits near sports betting, prediction markets, crypto exchanges, and DFS-style trading. That mix could attract users who want sportsbook speed with exchange-style pricing, but it also places Pred in a sector where regulators continue to watch event contracts, sports markets, stablecoins, and consumer safeguards.