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Recently, Polymarket completely broke into the mainstream.

Many people only see its “gambling” attribute, seeing people get rich overnight by betting on the election. If that’s all you see, you might be underestimating the biggest shift in this Web3 narrative cycle.

In my view, the explosion of prediction markets signals that Web3 has finally found its third killer application scenario, beyond DeFi (financial idling) and NFTs (picture speculation): “The Repricing of Truth.”

1. The Collapse of the Traditional World: When Experts Are No Longer Penalized

Why did Polymarket’s prediction accuracy crush CNN, The New York Times, and all traditional polling agencies?

The principle is brutally simple: Skin in the Game.

In the world of Web2 and traditional media, experts, influencers, and analysts express opinions at zero cost. If they predict wrong, they just delete the post, apologize, or sometimes do nothing at all, switching to another topic the next day to continue harvesting traffic. Their core motivation is “attention,” not “accuracy.”

However, in Web3’s prediction market, opinion is the chip you play with.

You don’t need to trust authority; you only need to trust that “no one wants to lose money.”

When a person must put down real money to back their judgment, driven by the human instinct to avoid loss, they discard emotion, bias, and noise to dig for data that is closest to the facts.

This is the magic of Web3: it uses financial tools to filter out 99% of the noise on the internet.

2. The Most Profound Understanding: From the “Attention Economy” to the “Truth Economy”

In the years I’ve been immersed in the Web3 industry, I’ve watched countless projects rise, celebrate, and then collapse.

I am increasingly convinced of one thing: Web3’s ultimate purpose is not faster payment but to build a “trustless trust system.”

Polymarket is just a microcosm. It reveals that Web3 is reconstructing the information layer of human society:

• Web2 (Social Media): Algorithms reward “emotion.” Whoever can provoke anger gets traffic. Consequently, we see polarization, rumors, and junk information.
• Web3 (The Value Network): Protocols reward “consensus” and “truth.” Whoever can provide correct information takes the prize pool.

This is a leap from the Attention Economy to the Truth Economy (or Credit Economy).

In this new world, the value of information is no longer determined by “likes,” but by “market pricing.”

3. A Cold Reflection for Web3 Founders/Practitioners

Looking through this hot topic, if you are currently running a Web3 project, you should reflect on your track:

Are you still a “Web2 Porter” —clumsily porting social media or gaming concepts onto the chain and then issuing a token? Or are you utilizing the core properties of the blockchain to solve the “Cost of Trust” problem?

• If it’s the former, you are still competing for traffic in the red ocean, and your user experience will never beat centralized applications.
• If it’s the latter (like decentralized prediction, RWA verification, or ZK proof identity), you are digging the real moats of Web3.

Conclusion

Polymarket’s significance is not in the gambling, but in its proof that when “money” is linked to “information,” the world becomes inherently more honest.

Perhaps this is the most captivating aspect of what Web3 calls “decentralization”—it doesn’t trust the words of authority; it only trusts the chips you’ve pushed across the table.

What is your take on the rise of this “Truth Economy”? Let’s discuss in the comments.