TL; DR
Full story
In case you’ve been living under a rock, people are going crazy over Polymarket right now.
(Seriously! Check out the chart for Total Value Locked 
, which is typically an indicator of the level of trust and usage of a DeFi platform).
Polymarket lets anyone (outside of restricted territories, of which the US is one) bet on the outcome of virtually anything under the sun.
This is the case, for example, at the time of writing commitment of more than $411 million based on the results of the American elections alone!
Polymarket is unique because it does not have a market maker, which ‘normal’ gambling platforms do.
Instead, because it is decentralized, it uses an automated market maker, that is, an algorithmic system that determines the price for each outcome, based on the amount of money wagered on each side by real gamblers.
And in a few weeks they’re about to launch something even cooler/crazier:
Leveraged Betting And derivatives-based betting.
With a leveraged bet, instead of betting your own money on the outcome of to put.
For example, you could bet $10 up front, but make a 5x leveraged bet, getting $50 back if you are successful, but having to pay another $40 if you lose the bet.
Derivatives-based betting means you can bet on more than just the outcome.
For example, betting on an election winner would be a ‘basic market’ bet; compared to betting on the margin of victory (a derivative bet).
It’s not an easy task!
But the fully on-chain derivatives platform, D8Xis working with Polymarket to bring it to market.
Sounds exciting to people, and incredibly dangerous to both professional and non-professional gamblers.
The good news: no matter what Twitter says, you don’t do it to have to participate in Polymarkt.