Ambitus: Climate Prediction Market

Wisdom of the crowds, but without the drama. Get paid to bet on climate and contribute to the greater good of scientific predictions- starting with the environment.

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Inspiration

After cheering on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, obsessing over "idea futures" and observing how living ecosystems continue to overcome material barriers to flourishing, Kenny and I knew that we couldn't leave PrincetonHacks without building a "crystal ball" for understanding the future of our natural world.

What it does

Prediction markets are widely known for their accuracy beyond traditional data collection methods such as polling, and uniquely gather trust due to their unbiased nature. When people put their money where their mouth is, predictions tend to be more accurate and taken more seriously. Furthermore, wisdom of the crowds predicts that, on average, even a group of relatively uninformed people can deliver shockingly accurate answers.

We created a prediction marketplace catered towards academic researchers searching for answers. By leveraging the accuracy of prediction marketplaces, we can get rapid answers and help researchers iterate quickly, while also using this external funding source to subsidize people's bets.

How we built it

Many files and hours spent on VS Code. Our tech stack includes Node.js, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Challenges we ran into

  • 2 man team powering through a technical MVP in 36 hours
  • Navigating how to sidestep regulatory scrutiny (think: Iowa Electronic Markets)
  • Answering questions around liquidity, bet matching, probability, price incentives, etc.
  • Differentation... including how to address the great equalizer of vibe coding

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Nearly 20 markets
  • Implementing all of this from scratch, including all of the mathematics
  • Designing our own novel algorithm for continuous, blind prediction markets something no other major platform has

What's next for Ambitus: Climate Prediction Market

We hope we can fuel the next era of truly data-driven, accurate, crowd-sourced decision making and research. We're planning to pitch this to investors, refine our idea, talk to connections in the academic space, and bring this to market.

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