Podcast Notes｜TurboFlow Founder Tony He: Prediction Markets and On-Chain Trading for Retail Investors Can't Rely on “Decentralization” Alone

“Never underestimate the power of users. We saw the actual data, so we adjusted the product focus.”

Recently, TurboFlow founder and CEO Tony He appeared on Pantera Capital’s official podcast《Stateful》, where he and host Mason Nystrom discussed the opportunities in Asia’s on-chain trading market, the trading experience that retail users truly need, and why prediction markets and outcome-based products may attract more participants.

Tony He previously co-founded Amber Group and has gone through multiple crypto market cycles. Unlike Amber, which primarily served institutions and high-net-worth clients, TurboFlow has from the outset paid more attention to retail traders.

This also leads to very different product challenges.

Professional traders are used to leverage, margin, funding fees, and liquidation mechanisms, but retail users usually care first and foremost about whether the product is easy to understand at a glance, whether capital status is clear, whether the trading process is smooth, and whether support is available promptly when problems arise.

According to Tony, for on-chain trading to truly serve the masses, it is not enough to emphasize technical architecture or the label “decentralized”; security, transparency, liquidity, product design, and user service must all be done well at the same time.

In the podcast, the two sides mainly used the concepts “Prediction Markets” and “Short-term Binary Outcome Products” to discuss this market category. This article uses “prediction markets” when introducing industry trends; when referring to TurboFlow’s specific products, it uses “Event Contracts.” The available markets, maturities, limits, returns, and actual settlement rules will follow TurboFlow’s real-time product interface and official documentation.

What kind of on-chain trading experience does Asia’s market need?

At the start of the podcast, Mason asked a direct question: in a landscape where perpetual DEXs and prediction markets have already produced many mature products, why does the market still need a new trading platform?

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

In the West, Hyperliquid has become one of the representative perpetual DEX platforms, while Polymarket and Kalshi have also brought prediction markets closer to the mainstream. By contrast, Asia’s market still has a great deal of unmet demand in product form, user habits, and service approach.

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

Asian users are accustomed to centralized exchanges, familiar with smooth account experiences, clear workflows, and timely customer service. At the same time, they also want the transparency that on-chain markets bring, along with a more open and diverse range of market choices.

Therefore, an on-chain product for Asian users needs to bridge two kinds of experience: it must preserve the transparency and verifiability of on-chain infrastructure, while also providing the operating flow, product information, and service support that retail users are used to.

Tony said:

“Asian users want a smooth experience similar to traditional trading platforms, while also being able to access products that previously existed mainly on-chain.”

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

Users will not naturally choose a product just because it is on-chain

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

Over the past few years, many DeFi protocols, smart contracts, and cross-chain infrastructure have experienced security incidents. Complex technical structures have sometimes not only failed to increase users’ sense of security, but also created more incomprehensible risks.

Therefore, Tony believes platforms need to start from the user, not from technical labels, in order to answer a question: why should users leave the familiar centralized platform and move on-chain?

If the process is more complicated, product choices are fewer, capital status is harder to understand, or support cannot be found when problems occur, then simply being “on-chain” is unlikely to create enough incentive for migration.

Transparency only matters when users can understand and verify it.

Users also need to clearly see the trading rules, hidden costs, settlement methods, and risk boundaries. Platforms need to reduce unnecessary steps so that newcomers can participate after they understand the product.

Tony summarizes the ideal state as “combining the strengths of both worlds”: providing the transparency of the on-chain market while retaining the trading experience, market selection, and service capabilities that retail users are familiar with.

Why can prediction markets attract more retail users?

As a trader with more than 10 years of experience, Tony finds that professionals easily underestimate the learning cost of derivatives trading.

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

For professional traders, these have already become trading habits; for someone encountering financial products for the first time, however, they constitute an entirely unfamiliar knowledge system.

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

Users do not need to learn a long list of financial terms in advance, nor do they need to face complex trading parameters. As long as they have a view on a clear outcome, they can choose the corresponding direction.

Tony said on the podcast:

“It simplified the process of learning all kinds of terminology 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 are no longer required to study an unfamiliar financial asset in advance; instead, they can express views around topics they already care about and understand.

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

In the perpetual contract market, users usually have to understand the asset first, and then learn the trading tools; whereas in the outcome-based market, users can start from their own existing knowledge and opinions.

From a product perspective, a shorter understanding path helps lower the initial participation threshold, while also potentially improving the conversion process from visit, to registration, to actual participation.

How did event contracts simplify the participation process?

TurboFlow’s event contracts use a fixed time frame and Higher or Lower direction selection.

Users choose a supported market, a contract expiry, and a price direction, then clearly enter the amount to participate with. When the contract expires, the result is automatically determined based on the entry price and settlement price.

Compared with continuously holding a perpetual contract position, event contracts have a few more intuitive characteristics:

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

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

Short-cycle markets are highly sensitive to price volatility and entry timing. If users choose the wrong direction, they may lose the entire amount committed to that event contract. Therefore, before confirming, users still need to understand the settlement rules, return ratio, applicable limits, and potential losses.

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 only one metric

On the podcast, Mason continued by asking: when a team builds a trading product from scratch, what matters most?

Safety, asset differentiation, market discovery, social features, quotes, matching efficiency, liquidity, and customer service — which area should the platform prioritize optimizing?

Tony’s answer was: all of those capabilities matter.

He advised using reverse reasoning: if you completely remove one factor, can the platform still be usable?

If you cannot build trust in capital safety, then even if the platform has novel products and good liquidity, users will still not want to participate; if the assets are very attractive but trading costs, slippage, or the matching experience are unacceptable, users will also be hard to retain over the long term.

When a platform is targeting mainstream users, customer service in particular cannot be treated as an add-on function outside the product.

A user who is not familiar with blockchain confirmation mechanisms may very likely become immediately anxious after depositing funds and not seeing the balance update in time. Even if it is ultimately just normal network delay, that experience can directly affect the user’s evaluation of the entire platform.

Tony said:

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

Innovative products may be the reason that brings users onto the platform, but safety, liquidity, and service experience determine whether they are willing to stay for the long term.

An early experiment that was not highly regarded changed the product direction

Prediction markets were not part of TurboFlow’s core product plan from the very beginning.

Tony stated frankly on the podcast that this direction was initially proposed by a co-founder, and that he did not have high expectations at the time, even believing that the idea might not generate clear user demand.

Nevertheless, the team eventually decided to bring it to market as an experiment.

User data after launch quickly exceeded expectations, and also pushed the team to re-examine the psychology and behavior of participants: why they liked this type of product, why they chose to participate in this way, and what different user groups needed from market products.

Tony said:

“The first day’s data surprised me tremendously. As I kept looking deeper, I began to realize that there was real demand behind prediction markets.”

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

This experience also helped Tony once again confirm a product principle: a founder’s experience can help the team form hypotheses, but actual user behavior is the key factor in testing those hypotheses.

Especially when serving mainstream users, the team cannot rely solely on the habits of professional traders to infer market demand.

Product changes behind the concept of “retail investors for all”

Mason placed the development of prediction markets within a larger trend: as access to markets continues to improve, more and more ordinary people are beginning to participate in investing and trading in different forms.

The drivers of this trend mainly come from two directions.

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

Second, the tool itself becomes more intuitive. Options, perpetual contracts, and outcome markets correspond to different knowledge thresholds and risk structures. For many new users, outcome markets may be one of the more understandable entry points.

Tony believes that people naturally form opinions about what happens around them. What usually limits participation is not a lack of interest, but an overly complex product path.

When a product can use clearer rules to contain those views, people who would not previously call themselves “traders” can also begin to learn about and participate in the market.

From Amber Group to TurboFlow: changing the target user means the product logic must also change

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

One important lesson he drew was: periods of market calm are often a good time to build foundational capabilities.

When the market cools down, the industry noise also decreases. The team can devote more attention to product, systems, and business infrastructure, preparing for the next phase of growth.

But Amber Group and TurboFlow serve two different user groups.

Amber Group mainly serves institutions and high-net-worth clients. This group cares more about capital preservation, risk control, and relatively stable returns. Compared with pursuing high-frequency participation, they value product certainty and long-term asset management capabilities more.

A platform aimed at everyday traders is different.

Retail investors care more about whether the product is interesting, whether feedback is timely, whether the markets are rich enough, and whether the interaction flow is direct enough. A product with stable returns that fits institutional clients may not necessarily meet the participation needs of mainstream users.

Changes in users also affect team composition and communication style.

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

Tony said TurboFlow is still learning through this process.

From the crypto market toward broader asset classes

At present, the more closely watched markets in TurboFlow’s outcome product mainly revolve around the short-term price trends of BTC and ETH.

Tony shared the product vision for the next 12 to 18 months in the podcast: continue increasing the number of accessible markets, and try expanding the asset scope to categories such as commodities, real-world assets, and foreign exchange.

This means TurboFlow wants to gradually shift from markets mainly centered on crypto assets to a broader and more diverse asset range.

Whether the underlying asset is BTC, gold, or foreign exchange, the core product design logic remains the same: to let users clearly see the market, direction, expiry, amount, return, and potential risks before participating.

On TurboFlow’s future goals, Tony said:

“We hope to see more users participating in outcome products, while also building stronger product capabilities and market influence in short-term outcome markets.”

This is the team’s development direction, not a commitment to future results. Specific product launch conditions and asset scope still need to follow official announcements and TurboFlow’s real-time product interface over time.

Closing thoughts

This conversation was not only about why TurboFlow focuses on prediction markets, but also posed a more fundamental question: why should mainstream users enter the on-chain market?

Transparency, openness, and asset autonomy are what make on-chain infrastructure valuable, but what users actually feel is whether the product is understandable, whether asset status is clear, whether transactions can be executed smoothly, and whether support is available when problems arise.

A truly retail-oriented product should not require users to first become blockchain experts.

It should keep complex mechanisms inside the system, and clearly present the necessary rules, costs, and risks to users.

Prediction markets and event contracts have attracted a lot of attention not only because they provide a new type of trading. More importantly, they turn market participation from complex financial parameters into a direct judgment on a clear outcome.

Everyone can have their own view of the real world.

What a product needs to do is contain those views in a simple, transparent, and responsible way.

For the product team, this conversation also left another memorable lesson: do not let prior assumptions make decisions on behalf of users. Form hypotheses, test quickly, respect the data, and then continue adjusting direction based on real behavior.

Sometimes, the opportunity to change a product roadmap lies right in an initial experiment that was not highly valued.

About TurboFlow

TurboFlow is an on-chain trading platform for global retail investors that combines prediction markets and perpetual contracts, while taking event contracts as its core product form in the direction of prediction markets. TurboFlow aims to make trading simpler, more transparent, and easier to participate in.

References

• Pantera Capital's 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.