Coinsilium CEO on Prediction Labs investment as company hones in on event-drive finance

Hello, you're watching Proax. I'm joined by Eddie Travia, the CEO of CoinSillium.

Eddie, very good to speak with you.

The prediction lab steel is your first move into prediction markets.

Why target the sector now and how big could it become?

Yeah, so we have been talking about this sector a couple of weeks ago

in our update, in our strategic update.

We said then that we identified prediction markets as a sector

that we believe is a key sector and strategic focus for us for this year, for 2026.

It has already been growing quite solidly over the last two years,

mostly last year, with the main two platforms being Calci and Polymarket.

And we believe it can grow much more.

There are different predictions out there, but it's already a $65 billion plus market

and we believe it can go much higher over the next two, three years.

And that's why we are interested in this sector.

It's because it's an intersection between trading and also blockchain

because a lot of these platforms actually use blockchain in different ways

to power the trades or to power the recording of the trades or the payments to cryptocurrencies.

As you said, prediction lab's focus is on data and intelligence rather than just trading.

What makes that model attractive and scalable?

Well, different things make this attractive.

First of all, what we have, let's say, witnessed in the world of cryptocurrencies.

I mean, we have always seen that trading has been, of course, a very lucrative activity

but also a very complex activity, especially regulatory-wise.

And in parallel, a lot of the large data platforms have done actually very well.

One of, I would say, some of the best returns on investment in the space of blockchain

and cryptocurrencies has been data platforms.

In a similar way to what we have seen in traditional finance,

where very large platforms, most well-known, for example Bloomberg,

of course, have done very well, become multi-billion-dollar enterprises.

But we have seen similar trends in the cryptocurrency industry

because obviously, trading of any asset is supported by data.

And a big market share has been recently gained by prediction markets

both in non-crypto and crypto trading activities.

By non-crypto, I mean, for example, predicting elections,

predicting certain events, climate events, and so forth.

And also just basically cryptocurrency prices.

So, yes, we have seen this and we believe that actually data platforms have advantages, for example,

in the sense that we wouldn't need a regulatory scrutiny

by the market as much as in the trading sector itself.

You've taken an initial stake in prediction labs with options to scale up.

What milestones would trigger you increasing that investment?

So, we have defined milestones with predictive labs, with the team.

The milestones that we have been looking at are both, I would say, technological development

because as we usually do, this is a very early-stage venture.

So, we always come pretty early in the life cycle of our portfolio companies.

So, the first milestones are, let's say, the development milestones.

So, for example, the platform when it can go live

and the type of features that it will have and so forth.

And quickly, we move on to more commercial milestones

on, for example, how many users the platform will have and so forth and what type of users.

What is interesting as well is that the platform that predictive labs is building

doesn't cater only to traders.

It will also cater to AI agents, for example, and institutions as well.

So, the market is quite broad and it means it requires quite a broad expertise as well.

And so, for us, it's very interesting to have this kind of parallel development

and investment along the milestones.

I hope you'll keep us updated on progress with that.

Thank you very much for your time today.

Thank you, Steven.

Eddie Travia, the CEO of Coincelium.