featured imageMarika
January 14, 2026

What Happens When a Prediction Market Resolves?

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Prediction markets feel alive when they’re moving.

Prices jump.
Probabilities swing.
The crowd panics, calms down, then adjusts again.

But every prediction market has one moment where everything stops.

The moment it resolves.

That’s when the market goes from “What might happen?”
to “This is what happened.”

And for prediction market data, that moment matters more than people think.

Because resolution is where probabilities turn into outcomes.

It’s the final checkpoint.

The last truth.

This guide walks through the full resolution lifecycle — what resolution means, how settlement works, what “final outcome” actually is, and how to track it.

A prediction market is a question. A real-world question.

“Will this candidate win?”
“Will BTC break $100K this month?”
“Will inflation come in above 3%?”

People trade Yes or No.

Prices move like probabilities.

But eventually, the event happens. Or it doesn’t.

That moment is resolution.

Resolution is when the market stops being a forecast and becomes a fact.

It’s the transition from:

belief → final outcome

And that’s why it’s so important for prediction market data.

Because everything before resolution is probability.

Everything after resolution is truth.

Most people think prediction markets resolve instantly.

They don’t.

Resolution is a process.

A clean prediction market resolution usually goes through four phases:

  1. Open (live trading)
  2. Closed (trading stops)
  3. Resolved (outcome decided)
  4. Settled (payout logic completed)

Let’s walk through what each one means.

This is the part everyone watches.

Prices move up and down. Volume comes in waves. Probabilities climb, collapse, stabilize, then shift again. During the Open phase, prediction market data is pure signal.

It tells you:

  • what the crowd believes right now
  • how fast belief changes
  • whether confidence is building or breaking

With FinFeedAPI, you can track this live using:

This is where the “Forecast API” use case lives.

Then something changes.

The market closes.

Closed does not always mean resolved.

It means trading stops.

Usually because:

  • the event is happening right now
  • the outcome is about to be clear
  • the market needs to avoid last-minute chaos

From a data perspective, this is where prediction markets become quiet.

Prices often stop moving.
Liquidity disappears.
Updates slow down.

But analysts still track this moment.

Because it tells you something important:

the crowd has locked in their final belief.

The last traded price before closure is often the market’s final “forecast snapshot.”

This is the core event. Resolution is when the market declares:

Yes wins
or
No wins

That result is based on resolution rules.

Every prediction market has them.

It can be something like:

  • official election results
  • a published macro number
  • a verified event announcement
  • a specific public source

Resolution rules matter because they define what counts as “truth.”

Not every situation is clean.

Sometimes outcomes are delayed.
Sometimes results are disputed.
Sometimes the event changes form.

That’s why resolution is not just “what happened.”

It’s:

what happened, according to the market’s official rules.

Once the outcome is set, the market becomes resolved.

Now comes the settlement. This is where the market pays out.

The simple version:

  • If Yes is correct → Yes settles at 1.00, No settles at 0.00
  • If No is correct → No settles at 1.00, Yes settles at 0.00

That’s the final conversion. Probability becomes payout.

And this is where prediction markets stop being forecasting tools and become finalized records.

For prediction market data, settlement is the moment the market turns into a clean labeled dataset:

✅ “This was the correct outcome.”

Which is incredibly valuable for research, backtesting, and evaluation.

Resolution isn’t just the end. It’s the validation step.

Because prediction market data is only meaningful if it eventually ties back to reality. Resolution gives you that tie.

It lets you answer:

  • Did the market predict correctly?
  • How early did it converge on the truth?
  • Did it overreact before stabilizing?
  • Was the confidence justified?
  • How long did uncertainty stay alive?

Without resolution, prediction market prices are just vibes.

With resolution, prediction market prices become measurable forecasting performance.

That’s the difference.

In prediction market data, the final outcome usually shows up as:

  • market status flips to Resolved
  • price converges to 1.00 for the winning outcome
  • OHLCV candles flatten at the settlement value
  • trading activity drops toward zero

So even if you don’t “watch the event live,” the data tells you when the market crossed the finish line.

FinFeedAPI’s Prediction Markets API is built for this exact workflow.

It lets you follow resolution from start to finish across exchanges.

Here’s the practical path:

Use the markets endpoint to pull market objects including:

  • title
  • current price
  • outcome name
  • status (Open, Closed, Resolved, Suspended)

This is how you know where the market is in the lifecycle.

During Open and Closed phases, you’ll want history.

OHLCV gives you belief over time.

You can pull candles at:

seconds, minutes, hours, days

Depending on whether you’re tracking micro-reactions or long trends.

When a market is close to resolving, activity tells a story.

FinFeedAPI provides:

  • latest trades
  • latest quotes
  • recent trades + quotes

If trades suddenly stop, the market may be closing.

If quotes disappear, liquidity is drying up.

That’s useful context.

Once resolution happens, you confirm it by checking:

  • status becomes Resolved
  • price is locked at the settlement level
  • activity becomes minimal

At this point, you can store the final result as a labeled outcome.

Perfect for:

forecast evaluation
research
model training
reporting

Let’s say a market is trading at:

Yes: 0.74
No: 0.26

For days, it stays around that range.

Then news drops.

Yes jumps to 0.92.

The market closes.

A few hours later, the official result is announced.

Yes resolves as correct.

Settlement happens.

Now the data says:

Yes = 1.00
No = 0.00

That entire journey is the value.

Not just the ending.

Because the story is:

  • how belief formed
  • how fast it reacted
  • when it became certain
  • whether it stayed stable under pressure

That’s what prediction market data captures.

Sometimes resolution is clean, but sometimes it’s messy. A few things that can happen:

  • unclear sources
  • delayed results
  • disputed outcomes
  • unexpected event changes
  • suspension while rules are applied

This is why you should always use market status in your system logic. Don’t assume “event ended” means “market resolved.” Track the lifecycle.

Let the market tell you.

If you’re building forecasting tools, dashboards, research pipelines, or AI systems, resolution is where prediction market data becomes gold.

FinFeedAPI’s Prediction Markets API gives you the full lifecycle:

  • market discovery with status tracking
  • live probability updates
  • historical OHLCV belief trends
  • trades, quotes, and activity monitoring
  • order book snapshots for liquidity context

So you can follow markets from open uncertainty…

all the way to final outcome truth.

👉 Explore the Prediction Markets API on FinFeedAPI.com and turn prediction markets into a real forecasting data layer.

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