# What is HermesTrade?

## Prediction markets, briefly

A prediction market lets you take a position on whether a specific event will happen. For every market on HermesTrade there are exactly two outcomes — YES and NO — and a corresponding pair of outcome shares. If you buy a YES share and the event resolves YES, that share pays out $1.00. If the event resolves NO, the share is worth $0.

The price of a YES share at any moment reflects the market's collective estimate of the probability of that outcome. A YES share trading at $0.72 means buyers and sellers currently believe there is roughly a 72% chance the event resolves YES. If you think the real probability is higher, buying YES shares is profitable in expectation; if you think it is lower, buying NO shares is.

## What makes HermesTrade distinct

**Monad blockchain.** HermesTrade runs on Monad, an EVM-compatible high-throughput chain. You interact with it through any EVM wallet. You do not need to understand blockchain internals to trade — the platform abstracts away gas and signing.

**CLOB pricing.** Prices come from a central limit order book fed by real buy and sell orders. The spread tightens as a market attracts liquidity, and you can post limit orders at any price you choose.

**Gasless trading.** When you first connect, HermesTrade deploys a Safe smart wallet linked to your EOA. After that one-time setup, every trade is submitted through a Relayer that covers gas on your behalf. You pay no gas fees to trade.

## Two types of markets

**Standard markets** cover any binary YES/NO question — political events, economic data, global news. The question, resolution criteria, and end date are set when the market is created.

**Sports markets** track live game outcomes with real-time score syncing. They follow the same YES/NO share structure but include live score data that updates throughout the game.

## How outcome shares work

Outcome shares are ERC1155 conditional tokens held in your smart wallet. Each share is specific to one side of one market — a YES share for market A is a distinct token from a YES share for market B.

When a market resolves:

* Shares on the winning side redeem at **$1.00 each**.
* Shares on the losing side are worth **$0**.

Until resolution, you can sell your shares back into the order book at any time at the prevailing market price.

{% hint style="info" %}
**Example:** You buy 100 YES shares at $0.65 each, spending $65. If the event resolves YES, you receive $100 — a gain of $35. If it resolves NO, your shares expire worthless and your loss is $65.
{% endhint %}

## A note on Monad

Monad is an EVM-compatible blockchain designed for high throughput. Smart contract addresses, token IDs, and chain configuration are all Monad-specific — do not use Polygon or Ethereum addresses. The chain details (chain ID, RPC endpoint, contract addresses) are available from the platform's `GET /public-info` endpoint.

{% hint style="warning" %}
Nothing in these docs constitutes financial advice. Prediction markets involve real monetary risk. Only trade amounts you are prepared to lose.
{% endhint %}


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.hermestrade.xyz/getting-started/what-is-hermestrade.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.