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Crypto Exchange Gemini launches hourly and daily prediction contracts with fixed resolution times for Zcash and Hyperliquid; contracts pay USD 1 for the correct outcome, with maximum loss limited to the purchase price

Newsquawk Staff ·

Crypto Exchange Gemini launches hourly and daily prediction contracts with fixed resolution times for Zcash and Hyperliquid; contracts pay USD 1 for the correct outcome, with maximum loss limited to the purchase price.

What it means

Exchange-launched binary event contracts of this kind follow a well-worn template: a fixed USD 1 payout on a correct call, defined maximum loss at the purchase price, and short-dated resolution windows that concentrate volume around the strike and the expiry. Comparable products on regulated venues and offshore platforms have historically drawn two distinct flows, directional punters treating them as a cheap lottery-style instrument, and hedgers using the bounded payoff as a poor man's option on the underlying, with the former typically dominating in thinly traded tokens. The choice of Zcash and Hyperliquid rather than large-cap pairs is consistent with prior form, where smaller, higher-beta names are used to seed new contract suites before broader rollout. Hourly and daily resolution places these at the speculative end of the spectrum, and the precedent from short-dated binaries is wide spreads, sharp pin risk around the reference level at settlement, and sensitivity to exactly which price source governs resolution. Worth noting is the regulatory perimeter: event contracts offered to US retail sit within an area where the derivatives regulator has alternated between accommodating and restricting such products, and the design details, who can access them and under which licence, tend to matter more to durability than the initial launch. Follow-ons to watch are whether the venue extends the suite to larger underlyings and whether pricing tightens enough to attract market-making interest, which historically determines whether these contracts become a real liquidity pool or remain a niche retail product.

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