How Popping works
Pick an outcome, hold its coin, and if that outcome wins, split the pot with the other holders.
1Buy an outcome
Every market is a Polymarket question. Each of its outcomes is a coin with its own Uniswap v4 pool, paired with ETH.
Buying pays ETH into that outcome's pool and gives you coins. The more people buy, the higher the coin price climbs. Each trade pays a 1% pool fee.
2Sell any time before settlement
You can sell coins back into the pool for ETH at the current price until the market settles. Selling takes ETH out of the pot.
Selling locks in a price now instead of waiting for the result.
3Settlement
The result is Polymarket's resolution of the question. Markets with a deadline can't settle before it; the contracts refuse.
Settlement is one transaction: the ETH in every pool moves into the market's vault, the winning outcome is recorded and trading stops.
4Redeem
Holders of the winning coin redeem from the vault on the market page. You receive pot × your coins ÷ winning coins held by traders, in ETH.
Coins of the losing outcomes pay nothing. Unsold coins and coins burned at settlement are excluded, so the pot is split only among real holders.
Reading the numbers
- Pot share
- Popping's own indicator: each outcome's share of the ETH paid into the market's pools (with a tiny equal seed, so one early buy reads as a lean, not 100%). It moves only when coins trade here.
- Polymarket
- The odds on polymarket.com for the same question, shown for reference. Nothing on Popping settles at those odds.
- Coin price
- ETH per coin in the outcome's pool right now. Large orders move it; the trade ticket shows the exact amount you'd receive, the price impact and a minimum.
- Pot
- All the ETH in the market's pools, and in its vault after settlement. At settlement Popping takes 5% and the winners split the other 95%.
- Pays per coin
- 95% of the pot ÷ winning coins held by traders, if that outcome won with the market as it is now. The multiple compares it with today's coin price. Both change with every trade until settlement.
Worked example
| Step | What happens | Pot |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alice buys Yes with 1 ETH and gets about 39.4M coins. | 1.000 ETH |
| 2 | Bob buys No with 0.5 ETH. | 1.500 ETH |
| 3 | Alice sells a tenth of her Yes coins and takes 0.152 ETH out. | 1.348 ETH |
| 4 | The deadline passes and Yes wins. Alice is the only Yes holder. | 1.348 ETH |
| 5 | Popping takes its 5% settlement fee. | 1.281 ETH |
| 6 | Alice redeems the rest. Bob's No coins pay nothing. | Alice gets 1.281 ETH |
Figures from a rehearsal of the contracts against the real Uniswap v4 deployment.
Pools and contracts
- Coins. Each outcome is a standard ERC-20 with a fixed supply of 100,000,000, opening at a value of 1.5 ETH per outcome. Nothing is minted later and transfers are unrestricted.
- Pools. Ordinary Uniswap v4 pools against native ETH, 1% fee tier. Any wallet, router or trading bot that supports v4 can trade them, not just this site.
- Liquidity. The whole supply starts in a single-sided position owned by the protocol, so every outcome launches at the same price. Only the protocol can add liquidity, so no outside position can be stuck at settlement.
- Fees. The 1% trade fee accrues to that protocol position and becomes part of the pot. At settlement 5% of the pot goes to Popping and the rest moves into the vault for the winners.
- Freeze. The pool hook blocks trading only after the market has settled.
Launching
Anyone can launch an open Polymarket question that has between two and eight outcomes; crypto price markets aren't supported. You sign a message to prove the launch is yours, and the platform pays the gas for the transaction that mints the coins and opens the pools. Launches are rate-limited per wallet.
Launch a market