Manifold Markets describes itself as “a play-money prediction market platform where you can bet on anything.” There probably isn’t a better way to describe it. A unique combination of PredictIt (simple user interface), Hypermind (play-money), and Metaculus (create your own markets), Manifold gamifies forecasting for a wide variety of interests and subcultures.
The play-money is called “mana” (M$) and users start out with M$500 but can earn more through investing in markets or purchase more from Manifold if they choose. An interesting twist is that mana can be redeemed for a charitable donation (with real U.S. dollars).
As of 10am on Thursday, March 2, 2023, there were 25,907 total markets on Manifold, of which 12,353 are technically open (not resolved). The top 1,000 markets account for 60% of volume on Manifold with 1,294 markets having no (zero) volume. There are only 46 markets with volume north of M$200,000, and the average market volume is M$6,915.83.
The Manifold user base is clearly motivated more by pop culture than politics, with 1,644 questions containing “Destiny,” while far fewer contain “Trump” (416), “Biden” (280), and Ukraine (366). It’s also extremely self-referential, almost annoyingly so, with 1,722 markets containing “Manifold” in the question.
Here are the all-time top 10 markets on Manifold by volume:
| Creator | Question | Volume (M$) |
| Honourary | The replacement administrator for Astral Codex Ten identifies as female. | 1,523,001.08 |
| Isaac King | Will this market’s probability be at least 69% for at least 69% of the time it remains open? | 979,434.22 |
| memestiny | Dan Stock (Permanent) | 761,124.57 |
| drt0 | Who will win Antagonist of the Year 2022? | 742,531.14 |
| The Void | Will Destiny Reach 600K Subscribers By the End Of November? | 729,467.22 |
| The Void | Who Will be Destiny’s Buddy of the Year (2022)? | 719,962.74 |
| Tomek K | Donald Trump’s return on Twitter: Will @realDonaldTrump tweet in 2022? | 627,572.74 |
| Jack | Will Twitter unban Destiny in 2022? | 616,495.71 |
| Wobbles[DesTiny] | Will Destiny post a video in January that reaches 400k views? | 562,665.68 |
| memestiny | Aba Stock (Permanent) | 548,126.39 |
Of the top 10 markets, one-half are related to controversial streamer Destiny, two are permanent open markets, and one market for each of Donald Trump, Astral Codex Ten, and a self-resolving market. And the Trump market was not about whether he returns to the White House, but whether he would return to Twitter in 2022.
Unlike most prediction markets or forecasting platforms, Manifold makes it extremely easy to tag markets and to search for similar markets in the same group. Below are the top 10 groups on Manifold by markets:
| Group | Description | Markets |
| Destiny.gg | Markets related to Destiny the streamer and the destiny.gg community. | 2,465 |
| Politics | Default group for all things related to politics | 1,773 |
| Manifold | Meta questions about Manifold Markets beyond bugs or features | 1,001 |
| Sports | Default group for all things related to sports | 914 |
| US Politics | 894 | |
| Technology | Default group for all things related to technology | 782 |
| Daliban HQ | 741 | |
| AI | 711 | |
| Economics | Default group for all things related to economics | 675 |
| Personal Goals | 618 |
And here are the top 10 groups on Manifold by membership:
| Group | Description | Members |
| Economics | Default group for all things related to economics | 18,289 |
| Technology | Default group for all things related to technology | 16,335 |
| Science | Default group for all things related to science | 16,233 |
| Politics | Default group for all things related to politics | 16,104 |
| World | Default group for all things related to world events | 16,032 |
| Culture | Default group for all things related to culture | 15,547 |
| Sports | Default group for all things related to sports | 14,291 |
| Destiny.gg | Markets related to Destiny the streamer and the destiny.gg community. | 6,298 |
| Destiny.gg Stocks | 3,389 | |
| AI | 2,019 |
Once again, Destiny is among the most popular groups by both membership and total number of markets (Daliban HQ is a Destiny reference.)
Below is a comparison of PredictIt share prices with Manifold’s chance of that event happening. Despite the regulatory sword hanging over PredictIt’s head, only one-half of the remaining 12 markets on PredictIt have an equivalent market on Manifold. No one apparently bothered to clone the PredictIt questions to Manifold.
| Question | Contract | PredictIt Latest Yes ($) | Manifold Yes chance |
| Will a woman be elected U.S. president in 2024? | Yes | 0.15 | 12% |
| Which party will win the 2024 U.S. presidential election? | REP | 0.50 | 49% |
| Which party will win the 2024 U.S. presidential election? | DEM | 0.52 | 49% |
| Will Joe Biden resign during his first term? | Yes | 0.18 | 8% |
| Who will win the 2024 US presidential election? | Biden | 0.35 | 42% |
| Who will win the 2024 US presidential election? | DeSantis | 0.28 | 25% |
| Who will win the 2024 US presidential election? | Trump | 0.24 | 17% |
| Who will win the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination? | Biden | 0.62 | 81% |
| Who will win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination? | DeSantis | 0.39 | 47% |
| Who will win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination? | Trump | 0.39 | 41% |
Despite using play-money, most of the Manifold probabilities are ballpark close to the PredictIt Yes prices. Granted, PredictIt prices may not reflect reality as it is still to be determined what happens to money invested in the remaining markets.
Manifold is a fun platform, but it will be interesting to see how accurate its many “mana” markets are at predicting the future. The Texas McCombs Salem Center is hosting a forecasting tournament on Manifold and hopefully that will shed some light on Manifold’s predictive ability.