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On Ascend, every market is priced as a probability between 0% and 100%. This probability represents the market’s collective assessment of how likely something is to happen. It is not an opinion. It is not a prediction from a single source. It is the aggregated result of continuous trading activity across all participants. When you see a price of 62%, it means the market currently assigns a 62% likelihood to that outcome. When you see 35%, the market thinks it is less likely. When you see 88%, the market thinks it is highly probable. You are not buying or selling an asset. You are taking a position on whether that probability will move up or down.

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Reading 0–100% Prices

The percentage scale is intuitive:

0%

The market considers this outcome impossible.

50%

The market is evenly split. Could go either way.

100%

The market considers this outcome certain.
Most prices sit somewhere in between. A few examples:
PriceWhat It Means
23%Unlikely, but possible
47%Slightly less than a coin flip
61%More likely than not
84%Highly probable

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Price Movement Is the Signal

Probability prices move as new information arrives and traders reassess.
The market is becoming more confident this outcome will happen. Traders are buying YES, pushing the price up. New information may have increased the perceived likelihood.
The market is becoming less confident. Traders are selling YES or buying NO. Something changed the collective expectation.
No major new information. The market has reached temporary consensus around this probability.
Your PnL comes from these movements. If you go LONG at 55% and the price rises to 68%, you’d be in profit. If it drops to 45%, you’d have unrealized losses. The final event resolution matters for settlement, but you can trade in and out based on probability movement alone.

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Where Do These Probabilities Come From?

Ascend does not invent probabilities. Prices are anchored to external sources.
1

External prediction markets

Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi already price thousands of outcomes. Ascend references these prices as a baseline.
2

Oracle feeds

For asset-linked markets (crypto, equities, commodities), specialized oracles provide probability data based on directional sentiment.
3

Aggregation

Multiple sources are combined using weighted averages. No single source dominates. Stale or invalid data is excluded automatically.
This oracle-sourced design keeps Ascend prices grounded in real market information while allowing leveraged trading on top.

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Why Percentages?

Percentages work because they are universal.
A 70% probability means the same thing whether you are trading an election, a Fed decision, or a crypto price target
No need to understand contract mechanics or notional values
Directional trading is intuitive: higher percentage means more likely, lower means less likely
This abstraction lets you focus on one question: Where do I think this probability is going?

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Single vs Multi-Outcome Markets

Some markets have one outcome. Others have several.
Example: Will BTC hit $100k by December 31st?One probability. One YES/NO. The price reflects the likelihood of YES.Price at 72% means the market thinks it is likely. You go LONG if you think it will rise toward 100%. You go SHORT if you think it will fall toward 0%.

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What Happens at Resolution?

When an event resolves, the probability snaps to its final value. The winning outcome settles at 100%. All other outcomes settle at 0%. If you are LONG on the winning outcome, your position settles at maximum value. If you are LONG on a losing outcome, it settles at zero. But remember: you do not have to hold until resolution. You can exit anytime based on probability movement.
Resolution follows predefined rules announced at market creation. There is no discretionary judgment. The same inputs always produce the same settlement.

Next: Directional Outcome Trading

Learn how to go LONG and SHORT on probabilities