Building Blocks for Prediction Markets

Scott, cofounder of SideSwap, joins the show to talk about what his team has been quietly building in the Liquid ecosystem. We cover SideSwap's atomic swap markets, their peg-in/peg-out service, and how partners like Aqua Wallet are plugging into their infrastructure. Scott breaks down the new Liquid Connect feature, their first Simplicity based binary outcome contracts on Swaption, and the roadmap toward Bitcoin native prediction markets on Liquid. We also get into Liquid's privacy advantages over Tron and Ethereum for Tether users, the surprising growth of the Brazilian stablecoin dePix, the federation trust model debate, and why liquid adoption has been slow but may finally be turning a corner.

Sideswap: https://sideswap.io
Swaption: https://swaption.io
Liquid Explorer: https://liquid.network
Tether Stats: https://usdt.network
Sideswap on X: https://x.com/side_swap

EPISODE: 194
BLOCK: 940011
PRICE: 1452 sats per dollar

(03:00) Introducing Scott and Sideswap

(05:01) Non‑custodial swaps, peg‑in/peg‑out, and order books

(08:08) Liquidity on Liquid: USDT vs. dePix in Brazil

(10:03) Market making tools and dealer participation

(11:58) Why Liquid adoption lagged and what may change

(14:08) Confidential transactions, Tether on Liquid, and privacy gains

(18:10) USDT on Liquid: issuance, custody patterns, and censorship resistance

(21:08) Prediction markets on Liquid: vision and building blocks

(24:46) Designing binary contracts and oracle models

(28:54) Trust models: Liquid federation vs. alt L2s

(33:29) Pragmatism in scaling: Spark, Phoenix, and layered ledgers

(36:33) Liquid Wallet Connect and Swaption MVP

(41:13) Ecosystem growth, integrations, and Brazil network effects

(43:19) Simplicity on Liquid: why it matters for Bitcoiners

(46:26) Calls to action: try swaps, order books, and Swaption

(50:31) User experience: Lightning vs. Liquid in practice

(52:41) AI agents and potential Liquid use cases

(54:46) Roadmap: Satoshi Dice, oracles, and a Polymarket‑style proof of concept