How to read this chart: each line shows the probability history of one outcome. Steep lines = rapid market repricing, typically after FOMC meetings or CPI prints. When "0 cuts" rises while "2 cuts" falls, the market is pricing in a hawkish shift. The opposite = dovish shift.
Polymarket Forecasts — Fed Path, Crypto & Risk
Prediction market data as a second frame of reference alongside seasonality. Daily snapshot from the Polymarket Gamma and CLOB APIs.
What does this page show? —
Polymarket is the world's largest prediction market. Traders stake real money (USDC) on specific outcomes — Fed decisions, recession, BTC price surges. The YES price between 0 and 1 directly reflects the implied market probability: 0.34 means the market sees a 34% chance for the outcome. Here you compare these collective market expectations with historical seasonality — three perspectives emerge: 1) Fed Path 2026 as a distribution over 0–12+ cuts, 2) Risk Traffic Light for tail events (recession, hike, emergency cut), 3) Crypto Divergence between the historical prior and market price. Sidebar: Filter by category, choose history period, select up to 10 markets for the explorer.
Note for readers in Germany —
SeasonAlpha shows public market data for information purposes and neither offers nor arranges any betting. Polymarket prohibits trading from Germany. The German joint gambling authority (GGL) classifies social betting as illegal and warns that taking part is a criminal offence. The prices shown are not a recommendation to take part.
Fed Path 2026 — Probability Distribution
13 outcome markets from the Polymarket event "How many Fed rate cuts in 2026?". Each bar shows the implied market probability for exactly that many cuts. The expected value (green line) is the probability-weighted sum.
How to read this chart: each bar is a separate Polymarket market — e.g. "Will the Fed cut exactly 3 times in 2026?". The height shows how much probability the market assigns to that outcome. The gold bar marks the most probable scenario. The green dashed line is the expected value — the probability-weighted average across all outcomes. Example: if it sits at 1.3, the market expects about 1.3 cuts on average, roughly 33 basis points of total reduction in 2026.
Fed Cuts Distribution Over Time
Risk Traffic Light — Tail Events & Macro
Four binary markets for scenarios outside the Fed base path. Red: the market price is above an editorially chosen threshold (see below) — not a historically measured quantity. Green: below it.
How to read the gauges: each tile shows a binary market (YES/NO). The percentage is the current implied probability of the YES outcome. Green = below, neutral = around, red = above the threshold. Thresholds: Recession > 35 %, Fed hike > 20 %, emergency cut > 15 %, negative GDP > 15 % — editorially set, not estimated from a distribution.
Risk Markets Over Time
How to read this chart: time history of the four risk markets. Correlated moves (all rising together) signal a genuine regime shift. Divergences (e.g. recession rising but negative GDP stays flat) point to market-specific news rather than general macro concern.
Crypto Divergence — BTC & ETH Target Probabilities
Horizontal ladders of price targets through end of 2026. Compare the market probabilities with your seasonal forecasts on the respective ticker pages.
How to read the ladder: each horizontal bar is a Polymarket for "will the price reach at least X by end of 2026?". The higher the price target, the lower the probability. The bar directly shows the implied market probability in percent. Typical reading: BTC ≥ $100k: 40% means the market sees a 40% chance that Bitcoin closes the year above $100k.
Divergence Analysis — Seasonality vs. Market
For each crypto target: the seasonal prior calculated empirically from price history (share of past complete years in which the required return from today's calendar date to year-end was reached). Compared with the current Polymarket probability. Green: prior above market. Red: market above prior. The gap does not say which of the two numbers is closer to the truth.
How to read the table: Required = percentage return the current price still needs to reach the target by year-end. Market YES = current Polymarket probability. Seasonal Prior = share of past complete years in which this return from today's calendar date to year-end was actually reached; the case count follows as k/n. Divergence = Seasonal Prior minus Market YES in percentage points. Positive (green): prior above market. Negative (red): market above prior. Assessment only names a direction from a gap of 3 percentage points onwards — that threshold is an editorial choice, not estimated from the data; with samples of a few years there is no basis for one.
History Explorer — Freely Selected Markets
Select up to 10 markets in the sidebar to compare their price paths. Divergences between markets reveal regime shifts (e.g. "no cuts" falls while "2 cuts" rises = market pricing in a dovish shift).
How to read this chart: all selected markets in one chart. Y-axis = probability in percent (0–100). Display mode: everything rising or falling together = shared market theme (e.g. all cut outcomes rising = dovish regime shift). Crossing lines between related markets often mark important repricing days (CPI, FOMC, jobs report).
All Markets — Catalogue Overview
26 markets from 7 Polymarket events. Click column headers to sort.
How to read the table: YES = current implied probability. 7d Δ = change versus the price 7 days ago in percentage points — positive values = market becoming more bullish on the outcome, negative = more bearish. Liquidity = volume in the active order book in USDC. Markets with < $20k liquidity are illiquid and their prices may be distorted — prefer more liquid markets for signals. Click column headers to sort.
Calibration — How reliable are Polymarket probabilities?
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Brier Score — Calibration Measure for Probability Forecasts
Formula:
What it has to be measured against: the base rate of this sample. A fixed band like “0.15–0.20 = good” does not hold in general — if the base rate is 10%, then
Important: A low Brier does not mean “usually correct”. If the market consistently says 30% and the event occurs in 30% of cases, the Brier is low — even though “mostly NO” is the more frequent outcome.
Whether the market forecasts beat the base rate is shown as the Assessment figure and is computed from the data. This spot previously claimed that Polymarket beats it “clearly” — that was hardcoded and did not come from the analysis.
Formula:
Brier = Mean((p − o)2) — Mean squared deviation between predicted probability p (0–1) and actual outcome o (1 = occurred, 0 = not).What it has to be measured against: the base rate of this sample. A fixed band like “0.15–0.20 = good” does not hold in general — if the base rate is 10%, then
p·(1−p) = 0.09 already beats 0.15. That is why the base-rate baseline of the evaluated sample is shown next to it, and the gap to it is the statement. 0.25 corresponds to a constant 50/50 forecast.Important: A low Brier does not mean “usually correct”. If the market consistently says 30% and the event occurs in 30% of cases, the Brier is low — even though “mostly NO” is the more frequent outcome.
Whether the market forecasts beat the base rate is shown as the Assessment figure and is computed from the data. This spot previously claimed that Polymarket beats it “clearly” — that was hardcoded and did not come from the analysis.
Brier score analysis on historically resolved markets. When Polymarket says 70%, does the event actually occur in ~70% of cases?
Which markets are in here — and which are not. The analysis covers resolved markets from six categories (fed, economy, crypto, crypto-prices, us-politics, politics), resolved since January 2024, with at least $10,000 in volume, at most 500 events per category request. That is a selected sample, not “Polymarket”. Three things shape the figure: a market that ran for a long time enters with every one of its days and therefore weighs more than a short one; several dependent contracts of the same event count separately; and the base rate below is the share of YES across all forecast days, not across resolutions. How much uncertainty the sample carries is not answered by this — the figure is an indication, not a verdict on quality.
Loading Brier statistics...
Methodology & Data Source
Data source: Polymarket Gamma API (metadata, snapshots) and CLOB prices-history (historical mid prices). One snapshot per day after the US close, plus hourly snapshots in the days around a Fed decision. History is topped up weekly. The age of each price shown is stated next to the figure.
What does YES price mean? The price in USDC per YES share. Since Polymarket markets are normalised to [0, 1] (1 USDC payout on YES resolution), the price equals the implied market probability. Example: YES = 0.34 means the market prices in a 34% probability for the outcome.
Liquidity: Volume in the active order book (USDC). Markets with <$20k liquidity are illiquid — their prices may be distorted.
Example (made-up numbers): BTC trades at $120k, the target is $150k by year-end — so +25% is required. In 2 of 8 comparable years, at least +25% was reached from this calendar date to year-end, putting the prior at 25% (2/8). Polymarket prices 10%. The gap is 15 percentage points — and nothing more: two out of eight years is a very thin basis, and the market knows things that are not in the price series.