How the platform works

What KAIRO is

KAIRO is an onchain platform for trading, launching, creating and discovering markets and assets on Arc. Its products are KAIRO Perps, KAIRO Launch, KAIRO Markets, KAIRO Swap, KAIRO Create Token, KAIRO Create Market, Up or Down and KAIRO Agent.

The rest of this page covers KAIRO Markets, the prediction-market product, end to end. A market asks one question with two possible answers, YES or NO. You buy the side you believe in. If your side is correct after the market closes and settles, each share you hold is worth 1 USDC. If it is wrong, it is worth nothing.

The end-to-end flow

1. Connect a wallet and switch it to Arc. Access is wallet-only, there is no email or social login.
2. Approve USDC once for the contract you are about to use. This is a standard token allowance, it does not move funds by itself.
3. Create a market, or open an existing one from Markets, Up or Down, or a topic page.
4. Buy YES or NO. The price you receive depends on the size of your order relative to the pool.
5. Hold, or sell back into the pool at any time before the market closes.
6. At the close time the market stops trading and enters resolution.
7. Once the outcome is final, claim: winning shares redeem for 1 USDC each, straight to your wallet.

Wallets and network

• Browser wallets are detected automatically, including MetaMask, Rabby, Rainbow, Exodus and imToken.
• Mobile wallets connect by QR code through WalletConnect.
• Connecting only shares your public address. Kairo never asks for a seed phrase or private key and cannot move your funds without a transaction you sign.
• Every action needs your wallet on Arc. If it is on another network, the interface offers a one-click switch.
• You need a small amount of the network's gas token in addition to USDC for each transaction.

Creating a market

Creation is a single transaction that deploys the market, prepares the YES/NO outcome tokens, registers a resolver and seeds the first liquidity.

• Write the question so a stranger can settle it from public evidence, with one clear closing time.
• Pick a topic so the market is discoverable: elections, politics, culture, sports, crypto, commodities, climate, economics, mentions, finance, or tech and science.
• Choose how it resolves: a bonded human proposal, or automated settlement from a verified price where one exists.
• The close time must be far enough in the future to satisfy the protocol's minimum market duration.
• Content filters block sexual content, violence against real people, terrorism, hate speech, self-harm, illegal trade and personal data. Blocked wording disables the create button before you sign anything.

How prices are made

Each market has a pool holding YES and NO shares. Buying YES takes YES shares out of the pool, so YES becomes more expensive and NO becomes cheaper. The two prices always add up to roughly 1 USDC.

• Small orders in a deep pool move the price very little.
• Large orders in a thin pool move it a lot, this is price impact, shown before you confirm.
• You set a slippage limit; if the price moves beyond it before your transaction lands, the trade reverts instead of filling badly.
• Selling works the same way in reverse, at whatever the pool price is at that moment.

Providing liquidity

Liquidity providers deposit USDC into a market's pool and receive pool shares in return. They earn part of every trading fee, and they carry the risk of the pool ending up holding mostly the losing side.

• Anyone can add liquidity to an open market, not only the creator.
• Liquidity added after creation can be withdrawn at any time.
• The creator's initial seed liquidity is locked until the market resolves. This is deliberate: it prevents a creator from opening a market, attracting traders and pulling the pool.
• Fees earned by the pool accumulate inside it and are withdrawn pro rata with your pool share.

Fees

One fee, charged on each buy and sell: 1.50% of the trade, split three ways.

• There is no creation fee, no withdrawal fee and no inactivity fee.
• The 10 USDC creation deposit is refundable and is not revenue.
• KAIRO/USDC swaps in the wallet panel run through Kairo's own swap contract against the Arc pool; 1.00% of the amount you pay goes to the protocol treasury, on top of the pool's own 1% liquidity fee.
• Network gas is paid to Arc validators, never to Kairo.

Resolution and payout

When the close time passes, trading stops and the outcome has to be established on-chain before anyone can claim.

1. Close time reached, trading ends.
2. Outcome proposed on-chain, or read from the price feed.
3. Challenge window elapses, for feed-based markets this step is skipped.
4. Outcome final. Winning shares are redeemable, losing shares are worth zero.
5. You claim from the market page and USDC arrives in your wallet.

Up or Down markets

Up or Down is a ready-made market type. Pick an asset with a verified price and an expiry from one hour to seven days. The verified price at the moment of creation is locked in as the line, and the market asks whether the price will be at or above that line at expiry, with ties counting as up.

• No leverage, no liquidations, no funding payments.
• Your maximum loss is what you spent on shares.
• Settlement is automatic from the feed, no human proposal.

Perps

Perps are leveraged perpetual futures on assets like BTC and ETH, with USDC as collateral. They are a separate product from prediction markets: instead of buying YES or NO shares, you open a long or short position that gains or loses value as the price moves, and you can lose your whole collateral if the position is liquidated.

• Kairo perps are built to settle entirely on Arc mainnet in native Arc USDC, signed by your own wallet. Kairo never takes custody of collateral.
• Perps open the moment Circle's cross-chain USDC transfer contracts appear on Arc mainnet. Kairo checks the chain directly and flips to open within minutes — no announcement needed.
• Prices come from verified feeds, the same infrastructure that resolves Kairo's price markets.
• Leverage, liquidation estimates and funding will be shown before you sign any transaction.

Where the numbers come from

There is no hidden database of markets or prices. The interface reads Arc directly: market creation events for discovery, and trade events for volume, trader counts, price history and probability changes. Anyone can reproduce every figure shown here from the chain.

• Probability and YES/NO prices: read live from each market's pool.
• Volume, traders and price history: aggregated from on-chain trade events.
• Liquidity: the collateral currently held by the pool.
• Quality score: a published, deterministic formula over those same on-chain figures.

Risks you are taking

• You can lose everything you commit to a position, a losing share is worth zero.
• Smart contracts can contain bugs. The protocol has not been reviewed by an external audit firm.
• Thin markets have wide price impact, you may not be able to exit at the price shown.
• A badly written question can settle in a way you did not expect, read the resolution rules before trading.
• Resolution depends on proposers, challengers and price feeds, all of which can fail or be delayed.
• Access may be unlawful in your jurisdiction, that determination is yours.

Common questions

Does Kairo hold my USDC?

No. Funds sit in the market contracts until you trade, withdraw liquidity or claim. Kairo cannot move them.

Can I sell before the market closes?

Yes, at any time while the market is open, at the current pool price.

What if everyone buys the same side?

That side becomes progressively more expensive, so late buyers get fewer shares per USDC. Payouts are still 1 USDC per winning share, funded by the collateral in the market.

Why can I not claim yet?

The outcome is not final. Either the challenge window is still running or the price feed has not published a value after the close time.

Do I get my creation deposit back?

Yes, the 10 USDC deposit returns once the market settles.

Is there an API?

There is no hosted API. The chain is the interface's only data source, so the chain is the API.