What are the weak signals to watch out for in the crypto ecosystem? In this new monthly column, I highlight two emerging trends that could well shape the future of Web3: prediction markets, which are true leading indicators of reality, and the creator economy, which is undergoing rapid change with innovative models such as Zora. Let’s take a closer look.
Weak signals that should not be underestimated
Each month, in this column, I will share two or three weak signals that have caught my attention. The aim is to highlight crypto projects that are still little known, often featuring innovative mechanisms, sometimes even still in the experimental stage.
There are several advantages to taking an interest in this type of project. Being an early user of certain protocols not only exposes you to future airdrops, but also allows you to ride the wave if the narrative takes off and benefits from growing media exposure.
To successfully position yourself on weak signals, it is essential to let go of your preconceptions: just because an idea has failed in the past does not mean that it will not find product-market fit with another team or a different execution.
That said, it is important to be cautious with recent projects. The risk of hacking is generally higher than with proven and regularly audited protocols. In addition, the cryptocurrencies associated with these young projects are generally more volatile than established assets such as Bitcoin or Ether.
For this first edition, we will address two topics that have particularly caught my attention in recent weeks: prediction markets and the creator economy.
Prediction markets: an unexpected public utility
Prediction markets are often mistakenly equated with simple sports betting platforms. However, they are fundamentally different. While sports betting is a game of chance, prediction markets are more like financial markets where users bet on future scenarios based on their knowledge and analysis. Furthermore, prediction markets are not limited to sports betting. A market may concern a political election, a monetary policy decision, the outcome of a media event, etc. A striking example: during the last US presidential election, prediction markets better anticipated Donald Trump’s victory than traditional polls. This effectiveness can be explained in large part by the fact that participants put their money on the line.
They therefore have a strong interest in being right. In addition, we have observed behavior that is quite revealing of the reliability of prediction markets: newly created wallets sometimes take positions with rather opportune size and timing. This is known as “insider trading,”
and it is one of the fundamental principles of prediction markets: insider trading does not exist (for the moment). People who have an informational advantage on the outcome of an event therefore have every interest in betting to pocket winnings without fear of possible legal action.
A recent case perfectly illustrates this phenomenon: on the Polymarket platform, a market called “Nobel Peace Prize Winner 2025” suddenly saw its odds reverse in favor of María Corina Machado, even though Yulia Navalnaya was the clear favorite.
About 10 hours later, María Corina Machado was indeed awarded the prize. The trader behind this change clearly had information that the rest of the market did not have.
What this teaches us is that prediction markets can be a particularly valuable source of information. For example, investors have every interest in anticipating the Fed’s next monetary policy decision.
There are now many prediction markets, each with their own particularities. However, the sector is dominated by Polymarket and Kalshi, two giants in terms of the volumes they record:
For example, Polymarket posted $841.5 million in volume, while Kalshi posted $909 million in volume for the week of October 6-12.
Other prediction markets, such as Limitless and Myriad, although more modest in terms of volume, offer interesting features: crypto-native betting, superior user experience, etc.
It is precisely these players in particular that I am watching closely: they could benefit from significant media exposure when Polymarket goes public.
Consider the popularity enjoyed by all decentralized exchanges (DEXs) for perpetual contracts following the launch of Aster (publicly supported by Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance). I believe we will see a relatively similar phenomenon when Polymarket goes public and other prediction markets launch their tokens.
There is therefore an opportunity to interact with these prediction markets and potentially become eligible for an airdrop, where the price of the token could be driven by the hype surrounding the prediction markets.
The creator economy with Zora
If there is one other project that has caught my attention in recent weeks, it is Zora, a social app that is experimenting with a unique monetization system. Each profile, and even each post published, is linked to a cryptocurrency. These are called content coins and creator coins.
The principle is as follows: each creator receives a share of the trading fees from their content coin/creator coin. Users can either speculate on content/creators that may go viral or simply support their favorite creators by accumulating cryptocurrencies linked to their content, similar to tipping.
This new way of monetizing content is still very much experimental, and there is no guarantee that it will succeed. Nevertheless, it is this kind of experimentation that catches my attention because it is fertile ground for even more experimentation.
For example, an analyst at Messari is testing an innovative model: he takes public trading positions on Zora and, if he makes a profit, he uses a percentage of it to buy back his creator coin. This creates buying pressure that could drive up the price of the token, encouraging holders to keep their creator coin beyond simple viral speculation.
Another example is an on-chain analyst offering access to his private Telegram group in exchange for 2.5 million of his creator coin. He then burns 2 million tokens and keeps the rest to pay for his work.
The goal here is not to promote X or Y coin, but rather to show you how Zora’s model, and the experiments related to it, can breathe new life into the creator economy, while benefiting holders.
These two weak signals are just a glimpse of the emerging dynamics that I intend to continue exploring in future editions. The goal remains the same: to help you identify, understand, and potentially take advantage of the projects that are shaping the crypto of tomorrow today.
Source: Artemis
