Prediction Market Platform Architecture Map: Exchanges, Wrappers, Routers, Perps Rails, and Intelligence Layers

Listings and rulebook controlled by the exchange or regulated rail.

Venue orderbook and matching mechanics control whether an order actually trades.

Exchange and, where applicable, clearing economics accrue to the regulated rail.

Contract, trading, and clearing fees follow the venue's official schedule.

The rulebook and designated settlement source or oracle control the outcome.

May include a DCM and, where vertically integrated, a DCO or clearing stack.

May use cash, collateral tokens, clearing margin, or no public token at all depending on the rail. Token mechanics do not define exchange status.

Do not infer exchange economics, clearing economics, or user upside from a token ticker unless official filings or platform docs say so.

The app exposes a selected catalog from one or more underlying rails.

Orders route to or through an underlying exchange, clearing, or partner relationship.

Distribution, account-surface, or partner economics accrue around the consumer app layer.

App and partner economics may differ from the underlying rail's public fee schedule.

The underlying rail's rulebook controls the contract outcome, not the wrapper screen alone.

Often an FCM, IB, member, or support surface rather than the DCM/DCO itself.

Usually exposes the underlying rail through an app account; any app equity, public-company stock, loyalty program, or token surface is separate from the contract itself.

Do not treat buying the wrapper company's stock or token as equivalent to trading the routed prediction-market contract.

The product matches equivalent or near-equivalent markets across supported venues.

Route selection or order splitting may choose the destination venue when supported.

Router software, spread, fee, or subscription economics may accrue at the routing layer.

Users need to inspect both router costs and destination-venue trading costs.

The destination venue still controls the outcome and settlement source.

Terms and registrations must be checked before assuming broker, FCM, or exchange status.

May charge software, routing, subscription, spread, or protocol fees; token exposure is unverified unless the router's own docs specify it.

A router can capture value without controlling settlement, and a token or fee switch does not prove the router owns the destination venue's economics.

Users create or seed markets subject to platform moderation and listing policy.

Platform-specific marketplace mechanics control trading and liquidity.

Economics may accrue to the platform and, where allowed, creators or liquidity providers.

Marketplace fee and revenue rules are platform-specific and should be read directly.

Resolution depends on the platform's resolver, oracle, moderation, or community process.

Do not treat it as equivalent to a CFTC-regulated DCM unless official filings say so.

May use platform credits, points, creator incentives, liquidity incentives, or tokens depending on the marketplace design.

User-created-market incentives are not the same as regulated exchange economics or guaranteed creator revenue.

A protocol or platform lists contracts, markets, or prediction-like instruments on the rail.

A perps, margin, liquidation, or funding engine controls execution behavior.

Fees, funding, liquidations, or protocol economics may capture value at the rail.

Trading, funding, collateral, and liquidation rules matter more than a simple contract fee.

Oracle, funding, margin, and collateral rules control payoff mechanics.

Varies by product; verify separately from event-contract DCM status.

Often has the clearest token/protocol-fee surface: collateral, funding, liquidations, governance, or fee capture can sit inside the rail.

Do not translate protocol-fee capture or governance-token narratives into event-contract user returns without primary-source support.

Editorial selection chooses which explainers, trackers, and source-linked pages to maintain.

No order execution, routing, matching, custody, clearing, or brokerage occurs here.

Audience, research, and editorial product value accrues without routing trades.

No brokerage, clearing, custody, or execution fee is charged by the intelligence layer.

The layer explains rule and source differences; it does not resolve markets.

No DCM, DCO, FCM, or IB role.

No token, collateral, custody, staking, clearing, or execution exposure is created by reading an intelligence page.

Audience or subscription value is not trade execution, brokerage, clearing, custody, or token exposure.