Podcast Notes | TurboFlow Founder Tony He: Real Prediction Markets and Onchain Trading for Retail Users Cannot Rely on “Decentralization” Alone

“Never underestimate the power of users. We saw the real data, so we refocused the product.”

Recently, TurboFlow founder and CEO Tony He appeared on Pantera Capital’s official podcast 《Stateful》 to discuss with host Mason Nystrom the opportunities in Asia’s onchain trading market, the trading experience retail users actually need, and why prediction markets and outcome-based products can attract a broader audience.

Tony He previously co-founded Amber Group and has gone through multiple crypto market cycles. Unlike Amber, which mainly serves institutions and high-net-worth clients, TurboFlow has from the beginning placed more emphasis on ordinary traders.

That also brings a completely different set of product questions.

Professional traders are familiar with leverage, margin, funding rates, and liquidation mechanisms, but ordinary users usually care first about whether the product is easy to understand quickly, whether the funding status is clear, whether the trading process is smooth, and whether support is available when issues arise.

In Tony’s view, for onchain trading to truly serve the masses, it cannot rely only on technical architecture or the label of “decentralization.” It must also deliver on security, transparency, liquidity, product design, and user support.

In the podcast, both sides mainly used the terms “Prediction Markets” and “Short-term Binary Outcome Products” to discuss this market category. This article uses “prediction markets” when introducing industry trends, and “Event Contracts” when referring to TurboFlow’s specific products. The actual available markets, durations, limits, payout rates, and settlement rules are subject to TurboFlow’s real-time product interface and official documentation.

What Kind of Onchain Trading Experience Does the Asian Market Need?

At the start of the podcast, Mason asked a direct question: given that perpetual DEXs and prediction markets already have several mature products, why does the market still need a new trading platform?

Tony’s view is that there are still clear differences between Eastern and Western markets.

In the West, Hyperliquid has already become one of the representative platforms for perpetual DEXs, while Polymarket and Kalshi have also brought prediction markets into the view of a broader user base. By comparison, Asia still has substantial unmet demand in product form, user habits, and service models.

This opportunity is not simply about translating a Western product into Asian languages.

Asian users have long used centralized exchanges and are more accustomed to smooth account experiences, clear operating paths, and prompt customer service. At the same time, they also want the transparency of onchain markets and a wider, more open selection of markets.

Therefore, onchain products aimed at Asian users need to connect two experiences: preserve the transparency and verifiability of onchain infrastructure, while also providing the operating style, product information, and support that ordinary users are familiar with.

Tony said:

“Asian users want a smooth experience similar to a traditional trading platform, while also being able to access products that used to exist mostly onchain.”

That is also the starting point for TurboFlow’s thinking about “retail-first” products.

Users Will Not Naturally Choose a Product Just Because It Is Onchain

For crypto-native users, self-custody, onchain verifiability, and open markets are already familiar concepts. But for a broader audience, onchain does not automatically mean simple, nor does it automatically mean safe.

Over the past few years, a range of DeFi protocols, smart contracts, and cross-chain infrastructure have experienced security incidents. In some cases, complex technical structures did not increase users’ sense of security; instead, they introduced more risks that were difficult to understand.

So in Tony’s view, platforms need to start from the user, not the technical label, and answer a different question: why would users migrate from familiar centralized platforms to onchain products?

If the process is more complicated, the product selection is more limited, the funding status is hard to understand, or support cannot be reached when problems occur, then “onchain” itself is unlikely to be enough of a reason to move.

Transparency only matters when users can understand and verify it.

Users also need to clearly see the trading rules, potential costs, settlement methods, and risk boundaries. Platforms, in turn, need to remove unnecessary steps so that new users can participate after understanding the product.

Tony summed up the ideal state as “combining the strengths of both worlds”: offering the transparency of onchain markets while preserving the trading experience, market selection, and service capabilities that ordinary users are familiar with.

Why Can Prediction Markets Attract More Ordinary Users?

As a trader with more than ten years of experience, Tony found that professionals often underestimate the learning cost of derivatives trading.

Perpetual contracts require users to understand the underlying asset, direction, leverage, margin, funding rates, and forced liquidation mechanisms. After opening a position, users also need to continuously manage position and liquidation risk.

For professional traders, these have become trading habits; for users encountering financial products for the first time, they represent an entire unfamiliar knowledge system.

Outcome-based markets use a more direct expression: “Do you think this will happen, or not?”

Users do not need to first learn a large number of financial terms, nor do they need to face complex trading parameters. As long as they have a view on a clearly defined outcome, they can choose the corresponding direction.

Tony said in the podcast:

“It simplifies the process of learning all kinds of terms and buttons into one question: do you think this will happen, or not?”

Prediction markets can cover politics, sports, weather, cultural events, and economic data. Users no longer have to first study an unfamiliar financial asset; instead, they can express a view around topics they already follow and understand.

That is also an important difference between prediction markets and traditional crypto trading products.

In perpetual markets, users typically need to understand the asset first, then learn the trading tool; in outcome-based markets, they can start from knowledge and opinions they already have.

From a product perspective, a shorter path to understanding helps lower the barrier to first-time participation and may also improve the conversion from access and registration to actual participation.

How Do Event Contracts Further Simplify Participation?

TurboFlow’s Event Contracts use a fixed time window and a Higher or Lower directional choice.

Users select a supported market, a contract duration, and a price direction, then enter a clear participation amount. When the contract expires, the result is automatically determined based on the entry price and settlement price.

Compared with perpetual positions held continuously, Event Contracts have several more intuitive characteristics:

• The participation amount is clearly displayed before confirmation;
• The contract has a fixed duration;
• The user chooses Higher or Lower;
• The contract settles automatically at expiry;
• During the holding period, there is no need to continuously manage funding rates, margin, or forced liquidation.

A simpler interface does not mean the product has no risk.

Short-term markets are sensitive to price volatility and entry timing. If the user chooses the wrong direction, they may lose the full participation amount of that Event Contract. Therefore, users still need to understand the settlement rules, payout rates, applicable limits, and potential losses before confirming.

The goal of simplifying the product is not to hide risk, but to make the rules and risks easier to understand.

A Trading Platform Cannot Optimize Just One Metric

In the podcast, Mason further asked: when a team builds a trading product from scratch, what matters most?

Should the platform prioritize security, asset differentiation, market discovery, social features, pricing, execution efficiency, liquidity, or customer service?

Tony’s answer was that all of these capabilities matter.

He suggested using a reverse approach to judge them: if one were completely removed, would the platform still be usable?

If fund safety cannot earn trust, users will not want to participate even if the platform has innovative products and good liquidity; if the assets are attractive but trading costs, slippage, or execution experience are unacceptable, users will also struggle to stay.

When a platform serves ordinary users, customer service especially cannot be treated as an add-on outside the product.

If a user unfamiliar with blockchain confirmation mechanisms deposits funds and the balance does not appear in time, concern may arise immediately. Even if it is just normal network delay, that experience can directly affect the user’s judgment of the entire platform.

Tony said:

“A trading platform needs to be good enough in almost every aspect. It needs to be reliable, trustworthy, have good liquidity, and also provide good customer service.”

Innovative products can be the reason users come to the platform, but security, liquidity, and service experience determine whether they are willing to stay long term.

An Experiment That Was Not Initially Favored Changed the Product Direction

Prediction markets were not initially part of TurboFlow’s core product plan.

Tony admitted in the podcast that this direction was first proposed by a partner, and he did not initially have high expectations; he even thought the idea might not generate any obvious user demand.

The team nevertheless decided to launch it as an experiment.

User data after launch quickly exceeded expectations, prompting the team to re-examine participant psychology and behavior: why they liked this product, why they chose this way of participating, and what kinds of demand different users had for market products.

Tony said:

“The data on the first day really surprised me. As I kept observing, I began to realize that there was indeed real demand behind prediction markets.”

In the end, TurboFlow adjusted its product focus based on user data and invested more resources into outcome-based markets.

That experience also reaffirmed a product principle for Tony: a founder’s experience can help the team form hypotheses, but real user behavior is what validates them.

Especially when serving ordinary users, a team cannot infer market demand solely from the habits of professional traders.

Product Changes Behind the “Everyone Is an Investor” Trend

Mason placed the development of prediction markets within a broader trend: as access to markets keeps improving, more and more ordinary people are participating in investing and trading in different forms.

The forces driving this trend mainly come from two directions.

First, the underlying assets have become easier to understand. Users are no longer limited to financial assets that require a large amount of specialized knowledge; they can also form their own views around sports, weather, economic data, or public events.

Second, the tools themselves have become more intuitive. Options, perpetual contracts, and outcome-based markets correspond to different knowledge thresholds and risk structures. For many new users, outcome-based markets may be one of the easier entry points to understand.

Tony believes that people naturally form opinions about things happening around them. What limits participation is often not a lack of interest, but an overly complicated product path.

When products can carry those views through clearer rules, people who would not normally describe themselves as “traders” may also begin to understand and participate in the market.

From Amber Group to TurboFlow: When the Audience Changes, the Product Logic Must Change Too

Tony previously co-founded Amber Group and went through multiple market cycles with the team.

One important lesson he drew from that experience is that market downturns are often a good time to build foundational capabilities.

When market enthusiasm fades, industry noise also decreases. The team can put more attention on products, systems, and business foundations to prepare for the next phase of growth.

But Amber Group and TurboFlow serve two different types of users.

Amber Group mainly serves institutions and high-net-worth clients. These clients focus more on fund protection, risk control, and relatively stable returns. Compared with high-frequency participation, they care more about product certainty and long-term asset management capabilities.

A platform for ordinary traders is different.

Retail users care more about whether the product is interesting, whether feedback is timely, whether the market selection is rich, and whether the operating process is direct enough. A steady-return product suitable for institutional clients may not necessarily meet ordinary users’ participation needs.

Changes in the user base also affect team composition and communication style.

A team with a traditional finance background is familiar with institutional business, but building a mass-market platform also requires understanding internet products, user growth, community communication, and retail trading behavior. Product design, market communication, and operational activities all need to be adjusted around real users.

Tony said TurboFlow is still learning through this process.

From Crypto Markets to a Broader Range of Asset Classes

At present, the markets drawing more attention within TurboFlow’s outcome-based products mainly revolve around short-term price direction for BTC and ETH.

In the podcast, Tony shared his product vision for the next 12 to 18 months: continue adding more participating markets and try expanding the asset range into categories such as commodities, real-world assets, and forex.

This means TurboFlow hopes to move from a market primarily centered on crypto assets toward more diverse asset coverage.

Whether the underlying asset is BTC, gold, or forex, the core product logic remains the same: before participating, users should clearly see the market, direction, duration, amount, payout rate, and potential risk.

On TurboFlow’s future goals, Tony said:

“We hope to see more users participating in outcome-based products and to build stronger product capability and market influence in short-term outcome-based markets.”

That represents the team’s direction of development, not a guarantee of future results. The specific product launch status and asset coverage should still be subject to TurboFlow’s official announcements and real-time product interface.

Closing Thoughts

This conversation was not only about why TurboFlow focuses on prediction markets, but also raised a more fundamental question: why should ordinary users enter onchain markets?

Transparency, openness, and self-custody form the value of onchain infrastructure, but what users actually feel is whether the product is understandable, whether fund status is clear, whether trading executes smoothly, and whether support is available when problems arise.

A product truly designed for retail users should not require them to first become blockchain experts.

It needs to keep the complex mechanisms inside the system, while presenting the necessary rules, costs, and risks clearly to users.

Prediction markets and Event Contracts are attracting attention not only because they offer a new category of trading. More importantly, they turn market participation from complex financial parameters into a direct judgment on a clearly defined outcome.

Everyone may have their own view of the real world.

What products need to do is carry those views in a simple, transparent, and responsible way.

And for product teams, this conversation also leaves behind another lesson worth recording: do not let existing assumptions decide for users. Form hypotheses, validate quickly, respect the data, and then keep adjusting direction based on real behavior.

Sometimes, the chance to change a product roadmap is hidden inside that first experiment that was not fully appreciated.

About TurboFlow

TurboFlow is an onchain trading platform for retail users worldwide, combining prediction markets and perpetual contracts, with Event Contracts as the core product form for the prediction-market direction. TurboFlow is committed to making trading simpler, more transparent, and easier to participate in.

References

• Pantera Capital official podcast 《Stateful》
• TurboFlow official website
• TurboFlow official documentation

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, tax, or financial advice.