Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist is a decentralized network for creating, betting on, and resolving prediction markets. The platform's native currency, the ZTG, is used to sway the direction of the network, and as a means of last-call dispute resolution.

Additionally, Zeitgeist is a protocol for efficient trading of prediciton market shares and will one day become the backbone of the decentralized finance ecosystem by allowing for traders to create complex financial contracts on virtually anything.

Technology

Built on Substrate

Zeitgeist is built on top of the Substrate framework for building blockchains, the most advanced tech of its kind.

Permissionless and Unstoppable

No single entity controls the Zeitgeist network. It is based on peer-to-peer technology and distributed governance.

Powered by ZTG

Zeitgeist is powered by ZTG. ZTG is the native currency of Zeitgeist that plays a critical role in market creation and resolution.

Scalable and Affordable

Since Zeitgeist is built on its own layer-1 chain with optimized runtime logic, it will be affordable even with high traffic.

How it Works

1. Create a Market

An individual, known as an aggregator, wishes to obtain a prediction on a particular variable. They create a new market and pose a question about the variable they want to test.

What will the price of Bitcoin be on December 31, 2020 at 23:59 UTC according to the CoinAPI feed?

2. Trade on Your Beliefs

Traders, whom each hold different views and information regarding the variable in question will take position in the market by buying market shares.

3. Report the Outcome

After the conclusion of the event, the designated oracle will report the outcome of the question to Zeitgeist.

4. Dispute False Reports

If any participant sees that the designated oracle reported incorrectly, they may start a dispute of the market by challenging it in a decentralized court.

5. Redeem Your Shares

Once the market outcome is finalized, traders who took the correct position in the market can exchange their shares for 1 ZTG. Traders who took the wrong position will have shares that are worth nothing.

Governed by Users

Zeitgeist is governed by the holders of the ZTG using a mix of normal token voting and a new futarchy model. Zeitgeist eats its own dogfood by making governance decisions via prediction market based futarchy.

Zeitgeist is an evolving network that will change and adapt over time. It does this through a sophisticated on-chain governance process.

Zeitgeist uses prediction markets based futarchy to determine its direction and policy. Game theory says that this should be more efficient than token voting alone.

Court

The court is the native dispute resolution system.

Holders of ZTG can stake their tokens in order to join the pool of jurors. These jurors are randomly selected whenever an oracle dispute is made for a particular market.

The jurors of the court will be charged in selecting the real outcome of the market. Court decisions can be challenge, which increasingly expands the number of jurors that are selected - each time raising the stakes.

If jurors are found by a later appeal to have resolved an oracle decision incorrectly, they will be slashed.

After a number of quorums are created and asked the real outcome of a market, if there is still a dispute the case will move to a global vote by all ZTG holders to report the outcome.

About ZTG

The ZTG is Zeitgeist's native token. It is necessary for correct operation of the network. Honest participants are rewarded ZTG and malicious actors can lose their ZTG.

Uses of ZTG

ZTG is used in various parts of the core protocol. The main uses are outlined below:

• The base currency that prediction markets can settle in.
• The governance token which will be used to make binding decisions over the direction of the Zetigeist chain.
• In dispute resolution, it is staked to join the Zeitgeist court system. Holders to stake to join the court can receive rewards for correctly resolving problematic oracles or market disputes.
• As bonds for creation of markets, selecting oracles, joining the council, making treasury proposals, setting on-chain identities, voting, creating DAOs, and other parts of the protocol.
• As the currency for transaction fees.

ZTG Release Schedule

Below is the ZTG release schedule for the first year of the network.

Inflation and Fees

Zeitgeist will have a target of 5% annual inflation. Therefore, the supply of Zeitgeist over time is predictable but uncapped.

The inflation in Zeitgeist will primarily be used to incentivize ongoing security of the network. The security includes the acquisition of a parchain lease of Kusma and the selection and maintainence of collator nodes to perform the transaction collation of the chain (block production).

Of the 5% inflation, 1% will go to operators of collator nodes which do the block production, 2% will go to stakers of ZTG who help select collators, and the remaining 2% will go toward interest payments of participants who lock up KSM for acquisition of Zeitgeist’s parachain lease.

The transaction fees on Zeitgeist will be subject to 80% burn which creates a deflationary pressure on the supply. The remaining 20% of transactions fees will be sent to the on-chain treasury which will use the funds to fund the future growth of the network.