If you automate Polymarket's crypto Up/Down markets, you hit this wall fast: there is no API that returns the "price to beat" (PTB) — the strike/reference price that decides whether Up or Down wins. You have to reconstruct it. And the speed + accuracy of that reconstruction turns out to be a server-location problem. Let me connect the two, because almost nobody does.
What the price-to-beat actually is
Each Up/Down cycle settles against one number — the PTB — captured at the cycle open (t_start). It's not stored in a Polymarket endpoint; it's taken from an upstream source at that instant:
Cycle
Where the PTB comes from
