NEXTPredict Paid $12,000 to Hedge Its Conference on a Prediction Market

In brief

• NEXTPredict bought contracts on Kalshi that pay out if more than half of flights into JFK are canceled on October 21.
• The premium was $12,000 against roughly $3 million of coverage, the organizer's full investment in the event.
• Susquehanna took the other side as market maker, in what the parties call the first conference hedged on a prediction market.

The organizers of a prediction markets conference have hedged the conference on a prediction market, paying a $12,000 premium for contracts that would return around $3 million if New York's airports seize up the day before it opens.

The trade, executed through Kalshi with Susquehanna as market maker, settles on whether more than half of flights scheduled to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport are canceled on October 21, the main travel day before NEXTPredict's October 22-23 summit at Convene in Hudson Yards. The $3 million represents the organizer's total investment in the event.

The threshold was chosen as a proxy, Pierre Lindh, co-founder and managing director of NEXT.io, told Decrypt. “We had a conversation with Kalshi and Susquehanna, and we said, ‘Why don’t we use airport disruption as the vector?’ Because if there is 50% flight cancellation from JFK on the 21st of October, it means that something has happened in the world."