FuturesAI Hedge Book: How to Recompute Its $165K Payoff

A hedge is only useful if you know what it pays in each case. The article’s headline figure doesn’t hold up when you rebuild it from its own table.

This post recomputes the example line by line, adds fees, and shows the single-event outcomes. It is arithmetic on the page’s example numbers, not a recommendation to trade. Prediction markets can lose the full stake, and this is not investment advice.

Check it on FuturesAI

What This Recalculates

• What does the FuturesAI hedge book hold?
• What does each position pay if it resolves Yes?
• How much do taker fees add?
• What does the book return if only one event hits?
• What should you change before using the idea?
• Recompute your own hedge book

What does the FuturesAI hedge book hold?

FuturesAI’s hedging article, read on November 4, 2026, describes a Q2 2026 example hedge book of five Yes positions across regulatory, price, venue, stablecoin and Fed events, with $37K total spent on a $1M crypto portfolio.

The article says the expected long-run return on such a book should be slightly negative, because that is the cost of insurance. A positive expected return means you are making directional bets rather than hedging.

The dates in the example have already passed, so treat it as a teaching case, not a live trade list.

What does each position pay if it resolves Yes?

A Yes share on a prediction market pays $1 if the event happens, so a position bought for a notional amount at a given price pays notional divided by price, which is 8,000 divided by 0.18 for the SEC line.

When I recomputed the page’s table, I found that the five payoffs add up to $251,307, not the roughly $165K the article states.

I can’t tell from the page which number it meant. The $165K may come from a different set of prices. Either way, rebuild the sum yourself before you size a hedge.

How much do taker fees add?

Polymarket’s fee documentation gives the taker fee as shares times fee rate times price times one minus price, with rates of 0.07 for crypto, 0.05 for economics and other markets, and 0.04 for politics, and says makers pay nothing.

Because shares equal notional divided by price, each fee simplifies to notional times rate times (1 minus price). The category for each line is my assumption, so the fees below are estimates.

That brings the real outlay to $38,704.90, about 3.87% of the $1M portfolio. Placing limit orders as a maker would remove these fees, but you may wait to be filled.

What does the book return if only one event hits?

If only one of the five events resolves Yes, the hedge book nets the payoff of that line minus the full $38,704.90 outlay, which is positive for three of the five lines and negative for two.

Look at the last row. If nothing happens, the book loses everything it cost. That is the insurance premium, and it’s why the article says the expected return should be slightly negative.

I noticed that the cheap, low-probability lines carry most of the payoff. The expensive ones barely repay the whole book on their own.

What should you change before using the idea?

Before using a prediction-market hedge, match each line to a real portfolio risk and its date, because the FuturesAI article itself warns about over-correlation, resolution timing mismatch and thin liquidity on tail markets.

• Do not load several lines that depend on the same decision.
• Check that the market resolves before the risk you fear, not after.
• Look at the order book depth before you size. Our Polymarket depth guide shows how.

For how fees change which strategies work, see which Polymarket strategies survive taker fees.

Recompute your own hedge book

1. List each market, entry price and notional.
2. Divide notional by price for the Yes payoff.
3. Look up the fee rate for the market’s category and apply notional x rate x (1 minus price).
4. Add fees to cost, then subtract from each single-event payoff.
5. Check the all-lose row. If you can’t afford it, shrink the book.

Check it on FuturesAI

Tips

• Recompute totals from the line items every time. Headline sums can be wrong.
• Read each market’s own fee parameters on its Market Details page.
• Write the date each line expires next to its price.

Warnings

• Prediction markets can lose the full stake. This is not investment advice.
• Fees here use assumed categories. Check the live market before relying on them.
• Example prices are from a past Q2 2026 illustration and are not current quotes.

FAQ

Why does the payoff differ from the figure on the FuturesAI page?

FuturesAI’s hedging article states a maximum payoff of about $165K, but dividing each entry notional by its entry price gives $44,444 + $83,333 + $28,571 + $71,429 + $23,529 = $251,307. The stated total does not match its own table, so use the per-line math.

Does a prediction market hedge replace options?

No. FuturesAI’s article says prediction markets hedge events while options hedge price, and that most portfolios need both.

Do Polymarket makers pay fees?

No. Polymarket’s fee documentation says makers are never charged fees and only takers pay. Geopolitical and world-events markets are fee-free.

Sources

• FuturesAI Insights: Hedging a Crypto Portfolio With Prediction Markets (read November 4, 2026)
• Polymarket Documentation: Trading Fees (read November 4, 2026)

Figures read on the FuturesAI article and Polymarket fee documentation as of November 4, 2026. The recalculation is arithmetic on the article’s example, not a forecast. Not investment advice.