Manifold (prediction market)

Online reputation-based prediction market

Manifold

Available in| English
Founded| December 2021; 3 years ago (December 2021)
Founder(s)| Austin Chen, James Grugett, Stephen Grugett
URL| manifold.markets
Current status| Active

Manifold, formerly known as Manifold Markets, is an online prediction market platform.[1][2] Users engage in competitive forecasting using play money called 'Mana'.[3] Topics on Manifold have included the 2024 United States presidential election and the Oscars.[4]

Manifold used to support real money betting using 'sweepcash', but this was sunset on March 28 2025.[5]

## History

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Manifold was founded in December 2021 by Austin Chen and brothers James and Stephen Grugett. James Grugett is the current CEO of the organization.[6]

Manifold received seed funding from the Astral Codex Ten grant program.[7] It has since received $1.5 million in funding from the FTX Future Fund,[8] and over $340,000 from the Survival and Flourishing Fund.[9]

In September 2023, Manifold hosted Manifest, a forecasting conference, in Berkeley, California. Attendees included Nate Silver, Robin Hanson, Richard Hanania, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Robert Miles, and Destiny.[7] The conference was hosted again in 2024 and 2025.[10]

## Market structure

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The website uses a play money currency called Mana. Markets use a version of the Uniswap automated market maker, known as "maniswap".[11] Formerly, Manifold supported Sweepcash which could be redeemed for real world money for a 5% fee, or cashed out to a charity of the user's choice for no fee.[12] One unit of Sweepcash was equivalent to $1 USD.

## See also

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* Polymarket
* Kalshi
* Metaculus
* PredictIt

## References

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1. ^ "Why a "room-temperature superconductor" would be a huge deal". Vox. 7 August 2023. Archived from the original on 2023-08-31. Retrieved 2023-08-31. "Prediction markets have seen wildly varying odds as participants bet for and against the material working out."
2. ^ Frick, Walter. "Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets". Nieman Lab. Archived from the original on 2023-06-03. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
3. ^ Taylor, Michael. "Taylor: Can you see into the future? Online prediction markets can — and they let you bet on it". San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
4. ^ Henshall, Will (2024-02-14). "Meet the People Making Actual Bets on Love". TIME. Retrieved 2024-02-14.
5. ^ "Mana forever!". manifoldmarkets.notion.site. Retrieved 2025-02-19.
6. ^ Richard Hanania. "Mana from Heaven | Stephen Grugett, James Grugett, & Richard Hanania". CSPI (Podcast). Retrieved 2023-08-31.
7. ^ a b Roose, Kevin (2023-10-08). "The Wager That Betting Can Change the World". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
8. ^ Ashworth, Louis (2022-12-19). "How to spend a million dollars, by Sam Bankman-Fried". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2023-03-24. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
9. ^ "SFF-2022-H1 S-Process Recommendations Announcement". Survival and Flourishing.Fund (SFF). Archived from the original on 2023-08-30. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
10. ^ "Manifest". www.manifest.is. Retrieved 2025-06-26.
11. ^ Frongillo, Rafael; Papireddygari, Maneesha; Waggoner, Bo (2023). "An Axiomatic Characterization of CFMMs and Equivalence to Prediction Markets". arXiv:2302.00196 [cs.GT].
12. ^ https://docs.manifold.markets/sweepstakes

## External links

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* Manifold website
* Manifold GitHub organization (source code)