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> The number gets reported on the main page once a day, but someone found a page with the hourly data and figured out how to average together the data points to predict the daily number.

Isn't this THE point of prediction market? A user found a better source of information and used it to make money.

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I would say technically the point of a prediction market is to predict things in advance of them happening, so I think you might get people who sensibly disagree with this point of view. But in the article it's a little confusing, because the person who did this could only trade IIUC with other people on the same day as the day the figure would be published so the people who traded with them were doing something very ill-advised to start with. I can't see how any of this would have affected people who tried to actually predict the co2 level properly, except that now they don't have a market any more.

Why isn't it the point? The point of prediction markets is to distribution information. If you know a better source the prediction markets incentivize you to aggregate that source and distribute that information widely. Once people find out, then that becomes the norm and the asset gets priced correctly. That's exactly the point of prediction markets.

[EDIT] Didn't realize the first section of OP was a quote and not an argument. I agree with OP

That's what the parent meant.

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