Since the very beginning of his country’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made threats of using nuclear weapons. More veiled threats by Putin on September 21st, specifically to use “all available means,” prompted United States President Joe Biden to warn of a nuclear “Armageddon” two weeks later.
While Biden compared this “direct threat” to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, prediction market traders have been more circumspect. The three markets examined below all have a single-digit implied probability of a nuclear attack happening in 2022:
| Platform | Terms | Yes | No |
| Metaculus | Will at least one nuclear weapon be detonated in Ukraine before 2023? | 3% | 97% |
| Polymarket | Will Russia use a nuclear weapon before 2023? | 5% | 95% |
| Hypermind | In 2022, will a nuclear weapon be used to kill? | 8% | 92% |
Please note that these markets each ask a different question:
- Metaculus is asking whether a nuclear weapon be detonated in Ukraine before 2023, not by whom.
- Polymarket is asking if Russia will use a nuclear weapon before 2023, not where.
- Hypermind is only asking if any nuclear weapon will be used to kill, independent of Russia or Ukraine.
METACULUS
Metaculus is a forecasting platform that aggregates predictions by encouraging users to compete in predicting probabilities on certain questions of “global importance.”
Metaculus users currently see a 3% chance of at least one nuclear weapon being detonated in Ukraine before 2023, down from a high of 13% on October 3rd (which was actually before President Biden’s “Armageddon” comments on October 6th.)
POLYMARKET
Polymarket is a decentralized prediction market built on the Polygon blockchain. Traders buy and sell using a stablecoin pinned to the U.S. dollar. Polymarket was fined this past January by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and forced to shutter its U.S. operations. Polymarket traders currently value the chance of Putin going nuclear at $0.05 per “Yes” share, down from a high of $0.08 on October 9th.
HYPERMIND
Hypermind is a French forecasting market that offers free participation by using “Hyper virtual currency” (ℍ) which has no value outside of Hypermind but incentivizes players with cash prizes for the top forecasters. Hypermind traders currently value nuclear “Yes” shares at 8H, meaning an 8% chance of a nuclear weapon being “used to kill” in 2022, down from a high of 21H (21%) on September 30th.
Both Hypermind and Polymarket offer binary option contracts: an event either happens or does not happen (Yes or No). Their respective traders can buy “Yes” and “No” shares on whether Russia will detonate a nuclear weapon inside Ukraine. A correct prediction receives $1/share (or in Hypermind, their ‘virtual currency’), and a wrong prediction receives $0/share. The individual share prices can indicate what traders believe is the probability of the event happening.
On the other hand, Metaculus is not a prediction market but a “prediction aggregator.” Users are asked to directly predict probabilities without event contracts assigning points for accuracy. Like Hypermind, Metaculus attempts to gamify forecasting.
In general, Putin’s threats in September seemed to have a greater influence on forecasts than Biden’s warning in October. However, Polymarket’s nuclear market opened the day before Biden’s “Armageddon” warning, which was almost two weeks after Putin’s latest public threat. It will be difficult to measure Putin’s impact on Polymarket traders, at least until further threats are made.