1024EX is a decentralized exchange built on its own first-party blockchain, 1024Chain

(www.1024ex.com). Unlike trading applications deployed on general-purpose blockchains,

1024Chain was designed from the outset around the core requirements of AI-driven and

quantitative trading. Its consensus mechanism, state-update cadence, and execution

model are engineered to support high-frequency strategies, algorithmic high-frequency

trading, and complex derivatives structures that demand determinism and continuity.

By the third day of our closed beta, we had reached a clear conclusion: the launch of 1024EX had been successful.

Without public marketing or user incentives, we collected more than 30,000 whitelist applications within three days, alongside web traffic and on-chain activity that far exceeded

expectations. These metrics point to a simple reality: the market is actively searching for a new type of exchange architecture.

If the story ended here, this would read like a standard “beta performance update.”

But once we began to analyze user behavior in detail, a far more revealing—and far more

concerning—pattern emerged.

The prediction market was the last product we designed, the least mature, and the most

problematic component of our exchange. It had not yet completed a full development cycle. In any traditional financial institution or technology company, such a product would normally be

hidden, not exposed to users.

Yet reality delivered the opposite verdict.

During the first three days of testing, the prediction market became:

•The most visited module on the platform

•The area with the longest average user dwell time

•One of the most active sources of on-chain interaction

Not perpetuals or spot trading—the segments long regarded as the core of crypto exchanges.These are not the kind of “vanity metrics” a growth team celebrates. They represent a

structural signal that demands serious attention.

A Counterintuitive Reality: The Least Mature Product Captured the Most User Attention

From an engineering standpoint—system completeness, stability, or risk controls—the

prediction market is clearly not ready to be considered a “core product.”

But from a behavioral standpoint, it has assumed a role that exchanges have historically

overlooked: the point of judgment entry.

For decades, exchanges have focused on a technical challenge: executing trades efficiently,

managing risk, and providing liquidity.

Prediction markets address a much earlier question:

How do I interpret what is about to happen?

The cognitive barrier to that question is far lower than deciding to place a leveraged trade—and far lower than mastering complex financial instruments.

Why Prediction Markets Are Naturally Suited to Become an EntryLevel Product

Our beta data revealed two fundamentally different usage patterns:

•Trading modules follow a linear path: enter, trade, exit

•Prediction markets follow a cyclical path: browse, compare, participate, return

Prediction markets do not force users to immediately bear price risk. They allow users to

express a view first, and decide on risk exposure later.

This gives them characteristics most trading products lack:

•Extremely low psychological barriers

•Strong engagement dynamics

•Inherent discussion and shareability

This explains why, despite their immaturity, prediction markets became the densest

concentration of user activity.

A Trend Emerging in the U.S.—and Lagging ElsewhereIf you observe the U.S. market, a clear direction is forming—one that spans both crypto and traditional finance.

Within crypto, Coinbase is systematically advancing prediction market products, attempting to elevate “opinion-based trading” from a peripheral feature to part of the exchange’s primary interface.

More structurally significant changes, however, are unfolding in traditional finance.

Among online brokerages and established institutions, key developments have already

appeared:

•Robinhood has launched forecast contracts, integrating event outcomes directly into tradable instruments

•More importantly, traditional brokerage infrastructure has begun to move. Interactive

Brokers (IBKR) has introduced Forecast Contracts, enabling trading around macroeconomic events, policy decisions, and major economic data releases

These products are not isolated experiments. They are embedded into existing account systems,margin frameworks, and risk management infrastructure—coexisting with equities, futures, and options.

In the U.S., prediction markets are no longer treated as side features; they are increasingly

viewed as a natural extension of the exchange and brokerage stack.

The contrast with non-U.S. markets is stark.

In many regions outside the U.S.:

•Prediction markets are fragmented into standalone applications

•Local exchanges rarely integrate them with spot or derivatives trading

•Traditional brokerage systems remain largely absent from this space

As a result, while U.S. users engage with prediction markets through unified financial platforms,users elsewhere are forced to navigate fragmented, loosely connected tools.

This is not a difference in demand. It is a difference in the pace of financial infrastructure evolution.

At its core, the reason is straightforward:

Non-U.S. markets still lack a unified entry point that truly integrates prediction and trading.

Prediction Markets Are Not the Endgame—They Are the Lowest

Barrier to EntryObserved user journeys show that prediction markets do not cannibalize trading activity.

Instead, they function as the first step:

•Users enter via prediction markets

•They browse and participate repeatedly

•Interest grows in “monetizing judgment”

•Users transition into more complex trading structures

In other words:

Prediction markets are beginning to replace spot trading as the new on-ramp.

Why the Industry Should Take This Seriously

For years, competition among exchanges has centered on fees, leverage ratios, and liquidity depth.

The rise of prediction markets suggests that the battleground is shifting:

From transaction efficiency to judgment entry.

Whoever becomes the first place users express, validate, and refine their views may ultimately define the next generation of exchanges.

Final Thoughts: A Survival Risk Has Already Begun Prediction markets are the least mature product on our platform—yet the most active.

This is not coincidence. It is a warning: the way users enter markets is changing, while many crypto exchanges continue to operate on logic shaped by the previous cycle.

History repeatedly shows that platforms are not displaced by poor execution, but by slow

responses to structural change. Coinbase’s long-term success cannot be explained by timing or compliance alone—it stems from an early understanding that an exchange’s most important role is to serve as an entry point for first-time users.

That leads to a more serious question:

In the next cycle, which segment will truly become the market’s first stop?

The answer will determine which exchanges remain at the table—and which are quietly left behind by the market itself.

1024EX is a decentralized exchange built on its own first-party blockchain, 1024Chain

(www.1024ex.com). Unlike trading applications deployed on general-purpose blockchains,

1024Chain was designed from the outset around the core requirements of AI-driven and

quantitative trading. Its consensus mechanism, state-update cadence, and execution

model are engineered to support high-frequency strategies, algorithmic high-frequency

trading, and complex derivatives structures that demand determinism and continuity.

By the third day of our closed beta, we had reached a clear conclusion: the launch of 1024EX had been successful.

Without public marketing or user incentives, we collected more than 30,000 whitelist applications within three days, alongside web traffic and on-chain activity that far exceeded

expectations. These metrics point to a simple reality: the market is actively searching for a new type of exchange architecture.

If the story ended here, this would read like a standard “beta performance update.”

But once we began to analyze user behavior in detail, a far more revealing—and far more

concerning—pattern emerged.

The prediction market was the last product we designed, the least mature, and the most

problematic component of our exchange. It had not yet completed a full development cycle. In any traditional financial institution or technology company, such a product would normally be

hidden, not exposed to users.

Yet reality delivered the opposite verdict.

During the first three days of testing, the prediction market became:

•The most visited module on the platform

•The area with the longest average user dwell time

•One of the most active sources of on-chain interaction

Not perpetuals or spot trading—the segments long regarded as the core of crypto exchanges.These are not the kind of “vanity metrics” a growth team celebrates. They represent a

structural signal that demands serious attention.

A Counterintuitive Reality: The Least Mature Product Captured the Most User Attention

From an engineering standpoint—system completeness, stability, or risk controls—the

prediction market is clearly not ready to be considered a “core product.”

But from a behavioral standpoint, it has assumed a role that exchanges have historically

overlooked: the point of judgment entry.

For decades, exchanges have focused on a technical challenge: executing trades efficiently,

managing risk, and providing liquidity.

Prediction markets address a much earlier question:

How do I interpret what is about to happen?

The cognitive barrier to that question is far lower than deciding to place a leveraged trade—and far lower than mastering complex financial instruments.

Why Prediction Markets Are Naturally Suited to Become an EntryLevel Product

Our beta data revealed two fundamentally different usage patterns:

•Trading modules follow a linear path: enter, trade, exit

•Prediction markets follow a cyclical path: browse, compare, participate, return

Prediction markets do not force users to immediately bear price risk. They allow users to

express a view first, and decide on risk exposure later.

This gives them characteristics most trading products lack:

•Extremely low psychological barriers

•Strong engagement dynamics

•Inherent discussion and shareability

This explains why, despite their immaturity, prediction markets became the densest

concentration of user activity.

A Trend Emerging in the U.S.—and Lagging ElsewhereIf you observe the U.S. market, a clear direction is forming—one that spans both crypto and traditional finance.

Within crypto, Coinbase is systematically advancing prediction market products, attempting to elevate “opinion-based trading” from a peripheral feature to part of the exchange’s primary interface.

More structurally significant changes, however, are unfolding in traditional finance.

Among online brokerages and established institutions, key developments have already

appeared:

•Robinhood has launched forecast contracts, integrating event outcomes directly into tradable instruments

•More importantly, traditional brokerage infrastructure has begun to move. Interactive

Brokers (IBKR) has introduced Forecast Contracts, enabling trading around macroeconomic events, policy decisions, and major economic data releases

These products are not isolated experiments. They are embedded into existing account systems,margin frameworks, and risk management infrastructure—coexisting with equities, futures, and options.

In the U.S., prediction markets are no longer treated as side features; they are increasingly

viewed as a natural extension of the exchange and brokerage stack.

The contrast with non-U.S. markets is stark.

In many regions outside the U.S.:

•Prediction markets are fragmented into standalone applications

•Local exchanges rarely integrate them with spot or derivatives trading

•Traditional brokerage systems remain largely absent from this space

As a result, while U.S. users engage with prediction markets through unified financial platforms,users elsewhere are forced to navigate fragmented, loosely connected tools.

This is not a difference in demand. It is a difference in the pace of financial infrastructure evolution.

At its core, the reason is straightforward:

Non-U.S. markets still lack a unified entry point that truly integrates prediction and trading.

Prediction Markets Are Not the Endgame—They Are the Lowest

Barrier to EntryObserved user journeys show that prediction markets do not cannibalize trading activity.

Instead, they function as the first step:

•Users enter via prediction markets

•They browse and participate repeatedly

•Interest grows in “monetizing judgment”

•Users transition into more complex trading structures

In other words:

Prediction markets are beginning to replace spot trading as the new on-ramp.

Why the Industry Should Take This Seriously

For years, competition among exchanges has centered on fees, leverage ratios, and liquidity depth.

The rise of prediction markets suggests that the battleground is shifting:

From transaction efficiency to judgment entry.

Whoever becomes the first place users express, validate, and refine their views may ultimately define the next generation of exchanges.

Final Thoughts: A Survival Risk Has Already Begun Prediction markets are the least mature product on our platform—yet the most active.

This is not coincidence. It is a warning: the way users enter markets is changing, while many crypto exchanges continue to operate on logic shaped by the previous cycle.

History repeatedly shows that platforms are not displaced by poor execution, but by slow

responses to structural change. Coinbase’s long-term success cannot be explained by timing or compliance alone—it stems from an early understanding that an exchange’s most important role is to serve as an entry point for first-time users.

That leads to a more serious question:

In the next cycle, which segment will truly become the market’s first stop?

The answer will determine which exchanges remain at the table—and which are quietly left behind by the market itself.