Guest Post by Eli Ben-Sasson
It is the one bet Polymarket cannot guarantee it would pay out. Will quantum computing break the world’s most famous prediction market, and every other one along with it?
If you follow quantum computing coverage, think “I’m not into crypto,” and skip straight to the World Cup, this is the part worth stopping for. The platform you might place that World Cup bet on carries the same quantum exposure. Not in some philosophical sense, but in the actual plumbing of how ownership, orders and settlement work. I have spent years building post-quantum systems, and this is the kind of exposure that worries me most, precisely because ordinary users never see it.
Prediction markets are one of the clearest mainstream uses of crypto. If you want the odds of a Fed rate cut, an election result, or who lifts the World Cup, a prediction market often gives a sharper signal than any pundit. People stake real money on real outcomes, and the price becomes a live estimate of probability. That is what makes them so interesting: simple to grasp, tied to things people actually care about, and usable without ever reading a blockchain white paper.
Then you look under the hood.
