Question 1

What is POLK?

Accepted Answer

POLK is the ERC-20 utility token of the Polkamarkets protocol. The protocol builds prediction markets around future events; POLK is used in functions such as market creation, outcome settlement, and quality curation, allowing token holders to participate in these key operations rather than leaving them entirely under the control of a single institution.

Question 2

What is POLK used for in the protocol?

Accepted Answer

POLK has three categories of use: creation, settlement, and curation. To create a new market, a creator must hold 1,000 POLK; this is a holding threshold, not an amount that must be paid or locked when creating a market, and it is intended to raise the cost of spam markets and automated abuse. When voting for or against a market to provide a quality signal, users likewise only need to hold POLK and do not need to spend tokens. By contrast, oracles participating in outcome settlement must bond POLK as collateral to the outcome they consider correct; this directly links their judgment to a potential token loss they can bear.

Question 3

How does POLK participate in market settlement?

Accepted Answer

After a market expires, oracles participate in determining the outcome through a decentralized collateral mechanism: each participant bonds POLK to the outcome they believe is correct, rather than having a single entity rule directly. Other participants can challenge incorrect bonds. The key to this design is that outcome judgments carry economic consequences. A party that bonds to an incorrect outcome may lose the POLK it bonded; a participant that successfully challenges an incorrect bond may receive POLK. Therefore, POLK here is not the prediction position itself, but collateral that encourages settlement participants to carefully verify the event rules and outcome evidence.

Question 4

What are the practical risks of participating in settlement?

Accepted Answer

The direct risk of participating in settlement is collateral loss. If an oracle bonds POLK to an outcome that is ultimately determined to be incorrect, it may lose that portion of bonded POLK; merely holding POLK does not automatically create this settlement risk. The risk arises because judgments about specific market terms, the timing of an event, and acceptable evidence may differ. Participants should first confirm how the market defines each outcome before deciding whether to provide collateral for an outcome; decentralized settlement does not mean every judgment will be accepted.

Question 5

What is POLK's supply and unlock status?

Accepted Answer

POLK has a total supply of 100,000,000 tokens, which official materials state will not increase. Its token generation event took place on February 20, 2021, and as of November 2022, all POLK had been distributed and unlocked. This means there was no POLK remaining to be released under the original distribution schedule; however, a fixed total supply does not mean the tradable quantity is fixed at any given time, because holders transferring, holding, or using tokens in different contexts still affects the quantity available on the market.

Question 6

On which networks can POLK be used?

Accepted Answer

POLK was natively issued on the Ethereum mainnet; official documentation states that it can be bridged to Polygon, Moonriver, and Moonbeam for use in the Polkamarkets protocol deployed on those networks. Bridging changes the network environment in which the token can be used, not its role as the POLK utility token. Before transferring across networks, confirm separately the sending network, receiving network, and asset version supported by the application. Identical address formats do not mean that an asset or network is compatible; sending to the wrong network may prevent the asset from being used in the target application as intended.

Question 7

Does holding POLK mean owning project equity or dividend rights?

Accepted Answer

No. POLK is defined as a utility token for accessing certain Polkamarkets services and smart-contract functions, rather than company equity, a business trust interest, an interest in a collective investment scheme, or another regulated investment product. The official terms also make clear that holding POLK does not give a holder the right to participate in or receive distributions of profits, revenue, payments, or returns from the project, token sale, or related entities. Therefore, eligibility to use the protocol and ownership of the project's operating results are two different things.

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