CrowdIntelDefinition
What is Negative-risk market (Polymarket)?
A Polymarket multi-outcome market where mutually exclusive 'No' positions can be converted so outcome prices stay arbitrage-consistent — enabling efficient multi-candidate betting.
In detail
Negative-risk (neg-risk) markets are Polymarket's mechanism for multi-outcome events like 'Who will win the election?' with many candidates. Instead of independent yes/no markets that could sum to more than 100%, the neg-risk adapter lets a trader convert a set of 'No' shares across all-but-one outcome into a 'Yes' on the remaining one, keeping prices consistent. It matters for analytics because neg-risk conversions move USDC and shares without being ordinary buys or sells — PnL trackers that ignore them mis-account a wallet's cost basis and profit.
How CrowdIntel measures it
CrowdIntel's position engine handles negative-risk conversions explicitly when reconstructing a wallet's ledger, so PnL on multi-candidate markets reconciles against Polymarket's own figures instead of drifting. Neg-risk conversion events are traced on-chain alongside buys, sells, merges, splits, and redemptions.
Frequently asked
What does negative risk mean on Polymarket?
It's the adapter that keeps multi-outcome markets arbitrage-consistent by letting you convert No shares across outcomes into a Yes on another. It removes the 'risk' of prices summing above 100%.
Why does neg-risk matter for tracking PnL?
Conversions move shares and USDC without a normal trade. Trackers that don't model them get a wallet's cost basis and profit wrong on multi-candidate markets.
Which markets use negative risk?
Multi-candidate events — elections with many contenders, award races, 'which team wins it all' — typically run on the neg-risk adapter.
Related terms
- Polymarket PnL
Profit and loss on Polymarket — the net USDC a wallet has gained or lost across all resolved and open positions.
- Prediction market
A market where participants trade contracts whose payout depends on the outcome of a future event — producing prices that aggregate crowd beliefs into probability estimates.
- On-chain trading analysis
The practice of drawing trading insights directly from blockchain transaction data rather than exchange-reported metrics — enabling verifiable, un-gameable analytics.
- Polymarket proxy wallet
The smart-contract wallet Polymarket creates for each user to hold funds and place trades — the address you actually see trading on-chain.