Thales shifts into overdrive with Speed Markets!

Simple crypto markets for shorter time frames, available on 4 chains

6 min readAug 29, 2023

Do you have the need… the need for speed?

Well don’t blink or you’ll miss another huge development from the Thales crew with the introduction of Speed Markets!

This new product allows traders to participate in simple crypto markets for shorter time frames, where they’ll need to choose UP or DOWN and the strike price (or snapshot’s price) is based on a snapshot of the current price when the transaction is submitted.

Speed Markets achieves this with the use of near real-time data feeds from Pyth Benchmarks and was built for users who prefer a fast-paced and easy-to-understand trading experience.

To celebrate Speed Markets launch, we’ve decided to go with a marathon theme and represent each of the new chains where Speed Markets has been deployed as part of Thales race!

You can check the release tweets here:

Now, let’s get into every detail about Speed Markets!

What is a Speed Market?

If you’ve participated in positional markets on Thales Markets platform, you know the main variables in a market include the crypto asset, the strike price, and the maturity date/time.

Typically, all of Thales markets close for positioning when the maturity date/time is less than 24 hours away due to protocol risk management.

Some traders in our community couldn’t wait on the sidelines for that long, so thanks to TIP-149, this new kind of market removes the 24h time limit and lets the market reach maturity in just hours, not days.

Speed Markets allow a trader to choose an asset, a direction (UP or DOWN), and a time frame (1–24 hours) based on the trader’s predicted price movement from the asset’s current price.

Once a trader submits a transaction to buy a position from the AMM, a snapshot of the asset’s current price is taken to define the strike price.

Because the strike price is always taken from the current price of an asset, all positions will have 50:50 implied probabilities. This means that a winning trader will see a 2x payout (minus the 4% LP and 2% SafeBox fee) on a single winning position!

How Speed Markets work under the hood

Thales developed Speed Markets to work with nearly instantaneous pricing data, made possible with the use of Pyth Benchmarks.

Pyth Benchmark on-demand oracles provide historically queryable prices that can be used to validate trades in near real-time. Every second, Pyth Benchmark price feeds are updated using source data from reputable third-party data publishers that can be easily verified from the Pythnet blockchain.

The possibilities presented for using this kind of on-demand data are endless and the initial launch of Speed Markets is just the start.

For now, the following parameters will define Speed Markets:

Speed Markets will start with a minimum time frame of 1 hour. Sidenote: The goal is to offer time frames as short as 5 minutes in the future.
The maximum time frame will be 24 hours.
ETH and BTC will be the supported assets at launch, with expansion to more assets planned in the future.
Using Speed Markets includes an AMM LP fee of 4% and a SafeBox fee of 2%, coming to 6% total fee.
If at the end of the time frame, your chosen position (UP or DOWN) is correct compared to the strike price (when you submit a transaction on your Web3 wallet), then you’ll be able to claim double the amount you put as collateral, minus the 6% fee.
The minimum buy-in is 5 USD, with a maximum of 200 USD (both can be modified down the line).
The AMM Risk Cap per Asset per Day will begin at 5000 USD.

You can participate in these markets using several forms of collateral (feature introduced on TIP-161), with the minimum amount of each token adjusted to equal 5 USDC. The following forms of collateral are accepted:

Optimism: sUSD, USDC, USDT, DAI, ETH, WETH, OP
Arbitrum: USDC, USDCe, ETH, WETH, ARB
Polygon: USDC
BASE: USDC

All kinds of collateral accepted by Speed Markets

And if you are a THALES staker on Optimism or Arbitrum, more good news for you, as Speed Markets volume already counts for gamified THALES staking bonus rewards!

If you need to read more on gamified THALES staking (and its bonus rewards), we highly recommend to check our documentation for Optimism and Arbitrum.

Speed Markets are quickly evolving, so these parameters are subject to change and improve with suggestions from the community. The initial AMM funding will be provided by the TreasuryDAO, but future TIPs could be implemented that allow users to provide liquidity for Speed Markets.

Using Speed Markets

You can jump into the action from the “Speed Markets” menu item or by navigating directly to https://thalesmarket.io/speedmarkets.

To participate, first choose an asset (like ETH on this example) and a direction (UP or DOWN). This is the direction you think the price will have moved at the end of your selected time frame based on the current price (snapshotted when the transaction is submitted).

Next, choose the time frame, selecting either hours or minutes (minimum is 60 minutes/1 hour, maximum is 24 hours), and then enter the amount you’d like to buy from the AMM.

You can use sUSD, USDC, USDT, DAI, ETH/WETH (on Optimism and Arbitrum), OP (on Optimism), ARB (on Arbitrum).

On Polygon and BASE deployments, the accepted collateral is USDC for now.

When you have a winning position, simply click on the “Claim Winning $XX.XX” button to grab your 2x payout! (minus fees)

That’s it. Simple, eh?

The Future of Speed Markets

As with all Thales products, Speed Markets won’t sit still for long.

Plans to further develop Speed Markets include the use of the consecutive round format from Thales Royale to facilitate sequential time frames. Once this feature is deployed it will give traders the ability to compound a winning position into the next time frame automatically.

Think of something like an Overtime’s Parlay, with each win resulting in the payout doubling. For example, if a trader is able to select the correct direction for 5 time frames in a row, their winnings would approach 32x (2x + 2x + 2x + 2x + 2x) of their initial buy-in (minus fees).

There are also plans to include Speed Markets into Thales referral system, so people can share their referral links with their peers and obtain a % of the trading fees directly into their wallet after each transaction 👀

You can read more about Thales referral system in our documentation.

Other features can also be added via future TIPs, so if you have any ideas then by all means share those with us on Thales Discord.

We expect Speed Markets to evolve faster than a lizard in a nuclear power plant, so don’t wait to satisfy your need for speed!