Author: Matou, Big Screw
Prediction markets might be the only field in 2025 that can collectively excite the esteemed investors of dollar funds, digital coin enthusiasts, and media practitioners.
In fact, there are many logical reasons to be optimistic about it, such as the arbitrage between state and federal regulations on domestic betting in the U.S., the enormous fees brought by extreme extrapolation of 0DTE, and the convergence of the content industry and light betting, etc.
But today we will not discuss these; instead, let's shift the focus to the spirit behind prediction markets and how this spirit aligns with a16z, which raises the flag of "New Media," becoming one of the most important pieces of its new media empire.
Chronicles of the Spirit of Prediction Markets
The product of prediction markets is very simple (at least it seems that way on the surface); it turns the betting object of a binary option into any event and information. However, the core spirit behind it has undergone several periods of transformation.
The earliest discussions about prediction markets actually originated from Hayek. In his view, the distribution of knowledge is uneven, and the market, as a coordinating mechanism, mobilizes information from various corners of society, from vendors to experts. Different people's judgments about the future converge into a price on the order book of prediction markets.
This discussion is the oldest, yet it is the most frequently mentioned. When you see terms like “probability aggregation market” or “truth machine” in marketing accounts, they all stem from nearly a century ago from Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society."
After Hayek, the torch was taken up by Robin Hanson. The old gentleman is still active on Twitter, engaging in battles with digital coin enthusiasts. His main contribution was designing a mechanism called the Logarithmic Market Scoring Rule (LMSR), which incentivizes those who know the truth to speak it, fundamentally laying the groundwork for the current design paradigm of prediction markets.
With such incentive mechanisms in place, information holders in various corners are motivated to contribute information and participate in the market. Extrapolating further, it seems that such markets could also be used for public governance, creating a market for each future issue where everyone bets real money, and thus the future landscape is constructed through changes in odds on the order book. This utopia is called Futarchy, composed of “future” and the suffix “-archy” indicating a government form.
Pioneering work: “Logarithmic Market Scoring Rules for Modular Information Integration”
All of the above belongs to the official mainstream narrative, and something that would be discussed in the timeline of a university's microeconomics lecture. However, I believe that any metaphysical discussion about prediction markets thereafter is somewhat meaningless until a16z's attention turned to this field.
Presence and New Media
a16z came into contact with the prediction market company Kalshi in 2024, and then invested in the $5 billion round in August 2025, with the discount currently unknown. Now Kalshi’s valuation has reached an astonishing $22 billion, making it the fastest-growing company outside of AI in terms of (valuation).
After establishing the position, a16z began to activate its media machine, writing a series of long articles explaining why Kalshi is one of the most important companies of this era. To be honest, while exchanges and gambling businesses are attractive, due to potential compliance pressures and moral hazard, they will never gain too high a PE ratio in the market, and it is clear that a16z's vision goes beyond this.
So what is the importance of Kalshi or the entire prediction market sector? The answer a16z provides is “presence” .
At this point in time, the contact between people and the world is actually separated by a layer of plastic film, akin to being able to browse only the front end of a webpage while knowing nothing about the back end's construction. You can consume the auditory and visual experiences, narratives, and even "real feelings" of the front end, but you cannot change or be present.
Moreover, it is apparent that in the not-so-distant future, even the transformation of the real world will gradually be outsourced to agents, so what is the role of humans in the historical process? It seems to boil down to after being fed and watered, burying their heads in light-colored sheets to start crying.
However, prediction markets provide a way to intervene, called prediction. It requires you to bet real money, then participate and observe the fluctuations in probabilities as if you bought a ticket to enter the stadium, willingly bearing the theta wear while taking screenshots of the prediction market probabilities, sharing in all groups, loudly announcing your positions and the views behind them.
This feeling is very anti-cynical; in an instant, the infinite distance, countless people, the selection of cardinals, the thickness of snow in New York, the rise and fall of crude oil within five minutes, and even whether Jesus will return in 2026, are all related to you. All the uncertainties and powerlessness of postmodernism collapse under your powerful prediction. You are no longer a gambler; you are a noble super observer, a prophet of your tribe, a calm bystander of history.
When enough people begin to use, discuss, and rely on this medium, the authority of the market itself will begin to rise. Kalshi will have the final interpretation rights over the event's: 1. Authenticity 2. Importance. This is undoubtedly an essential element of the new media empire envisioned by a16z.
A Chart Explaining the Assassination of Charlie Kirk
Case Study: MTS
Finally, let's talk about this new media defined by a16z. From the first generation of a16z and YC advocating In-house Media, to the second generation represented by 20VC and Not Boring Capital, which grew out of media, and finally, companies and institutions acquiring media like TBPN, the power of media has been in constant transfer and devolution, and the battleground of public opinion has shifted from blogs, television programs, and other formats to Twitter and podcasts.
When it is mentioned that VCs need to create content and brand, assisting founders in distribution, by 2026 it is already mundane. The new media that a16z describes is a comprehensive project, covering everything from upstream narrative tuning, midstream product financing and public relations to downstream customer acquisition, all within range and at a speed far exceeding what traditional media and agencies can comprehend.
A proposal that might have taken 3-6 months to complete previously can be finished in weeks now, with the new media producing founder podcasts, short video snippets, AI-generated release videos, newsletters about company ethos and development plans, etc., releasing information with extreme intensity in an extreme time frame, what they call "taking over the timeline."
Perhaps various self-media and AI-generated information are too noisy, so we can only be a bit noisier. Moreover, our noise is more important than yours.
MTS (full name "Monitoring The Situation") embodies this philosophy, continuously live streaming news on Twitter 24/7, allowing a series of political figures, tech company founders, and key persons in trending news to speak, and then slicing and disseminating it. They claim to only report on the most important things in the world until something more important happens.
MTS Interviews Robinhood
Looking back at Kalshi, it feels like everything has aligned. With just volume and a16z’s endorsement, media like MTS can definitely thrive, but the influence outside a16z's light cone remains limited, resembling more of a fraternity media or campus club publication. However, prediction markets are different; the trading volume and positions hold real money, seemingly possessing a certain independent third-party cold quality and persuasiveness.
Imagine if you were a staunch MAGA supporter, and during the midterm elections you saw that the market for Republican victory on Kalshi had reached billions of dollars in trading volume while the price of the YES option for victory dropped to $0.1—would you hesitate for a moment? —Did the folks on Capitol Hill already know the outcome? Has a fair information market already painted an image of the future?
This may be the core reason why Kalshi is valued at $22 billion; this reality-distorting field is something that a private company has seldom obtained in human history.
TBPN New Media Landscape
References:
[1] Alex Danco, “Prediction: the successor to postmodernism,” Andreessen Horowitz, October 10, 2025.
[2] Alex Danco, “Prediction Path Screenshots: A New Kind of Meme,” Andreessen Horowitz, October 10, 2025.
[3] F. A. Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 519–530, 1945.
[4] Erik Torenberg, Ben Horowitz, and Marc Andreessen, “a16z’s New Media Playbook,” Andreessen Horowitz Podcast, February 27, 2026.
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