Trading event markets
Event markets let you trade the probability of each outcome by buying and selling YES and NO tokens for that outcome.
Event markets are separate from event conditionals. Event markets express a view on which outcome happens. Event conditionals express a view on where an asset's price settles if an outcome happens.
What you buy when you trade
An event market has a fixed set of mutually exclusive outcomes, and exactly one outcome is realized at resolution.
For a given outcome:
A YES token pays 1 USDC if that outcome is realized, and 0 USDC otherwise.
A NO token pays 0 USDC if that outcome is realized, and 1 USDC otherwise.
“NO for an outcome” means “any outcome resolves true except this one”.
How to read the price
Butter quotes prices as shares per $1:
YES price is quoted as YES shares per 1 USDC.
NO price is quoted as NO shares per 1 USDC.
Since a YES token pays 1 USDC if it wins, the USDC price per share is also the market-implied probability, up to fees and market microstructure.
Example: If the pool shows 4 YES shares per $1, then usdPerYesShare=41=0.25, which corresponds to an implied 25% probability.
Placing trades
Event markets support four trade intents:
BUY_YESSELL_YESBUY_NOSELL_NO
Buying and selling YES trades a single YES/USDC market for the selected outcome.
Buying and selling NO is a single user action, but it is implemented under the hood by trading the complement outcomes' YES tokens and wrapping or unwrapping them. You do not manage the wrapping steps manually.
Butter also applies mandatory netting between YES and NO for the same outcome. If you buy YES while holding NO for that outcome, Butter sells NO first instead of increasing your gross exposure, and the same applies in the opposite direction.
What happens at resolution
At resolution, one outcome is realized:
YES for the realized outcome pays 1 USDC per share, and all other YES tokens pay 0.
NO for the realized outcome pays 0, and all other NO tokens pay 1 USDC per share.
How this relates to event conditionals
Event markets answer “which outcome happens”.
Event conditionals answer “where does an asset settle if this outcome happens”.
If you want to trade an asset’s price conditional on an outcome, start with:
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