Manifold Markets Promo Code: 1,000 Mana free on sign up

Manifold Markets launched in December 2021 with a simple and somewhat unusual goal for a prediction market: make it free. Not free as in a promotional offer that ends after thirty days. Free as a permanent design choice. No real money. No gambling licence. No CFTC registration. No KYC. Just a platform where anyone in the world can sign up in sixty seconds, get a starting balance of play money called Mana, and start creating and trading on markets about anything they find interesting.

1,000 Mana free on sign up

Predict

Must be 18 years or older and have a legal, U.S. residential address within the applicable state, D.C., or U.S. territories. Not available in AZ, IL, MA, MD, MI, MT, NJ, NV and OH.

The platform was founded by Austin Chen, James Grugett, and Stephen Grugett, with Stephen serving as CEO. It is built around the idea that the most valuable thing a prediction market can produce is not financial returns but accurate probability estimates, and that the best way to get those estimates is to make the market accessible to as many intelligent, curious people as possible rather than restricting it to users willing to risk real money.

Between September 2024 and March 2025 Manifold experimented with a real money sweepstakes layer called Sweepcash, which allowed eligible users to trade in a second currency redeemable for real prizes. That experiment was shut down on March 28, 2025 and the platform returned fully to its Mana-only model. As of 2026 Manifold is purely play money with no plans to re enter real money settlement, and the founders have been clear that this is a deliberate choice rather than a limitation they plan to work around.

From Sign Up to First Prediction

Getting started on Manifold is the fastest onboarding of any platform in this series. You visit the site or download the app, sign in with Google, Apple, or an email address, and you are inside the platform with a starting balance of 1,000 Mana within about thirty seconds. No government ID, no bank details, no financial background questions. The play-money model means none of that is required.

Your 1,000 Mana starting balance is yours to trade with immediately. You browse the available markets by category or search for a specific topic, find a market you have a view on, and click Yes or No to buy shares at the current implied probability. Manifold uses a modified automated market maker called Maniswap, which means you do not need another user on the other side of your trade. The system automatically provides liquidity, so you can buy into any market at any time without waiting for a match.

Each market displays a probability percentage rather than a contract price. A market at 65% means the platform's collective wisdom currently puts a 65% chance on that outcome happening. If you buy Yes shares at 65% and the market resolves Yes, you collect M1 per share. If you buy No shares at 35% and the market resolves No, you also collect M1 per share. The difference between what you paid and M1 is your profit or loss.

Market creators define the resolution criteria when they set up a market. They are responsible for resolving it once the outcome is known, and Manifold retains the ability to step in and resolve, re-resolve, or cancel markets if there are disputes or issues with how a creator resolves their market. You can also sell your shares before a market resolves if the probability has moved in your favour and you want to lock in your gain.

Mana cannot be converted to cash. There are two things you can do with it outside of trading. You can donate it to a list of vetted charity partners at a rate of M100 per dollar, turning your forecasting skill into a small but real charitable contribution. Also, you can use it to subsidise new markets you create, adding Mana to the liquidity pool to make a market more attractive for other users to trade in.

Platform Snapshot

⭐ Best For: Forecasters, researchers, and curious people who want to trade predictions without financial risk

🎁 Welcome Offer: 1,000 Mana free on sign up; no purchase required

📍 Availability: Global; no geographic restrictions

📚 Market Categories: Politics, technology, AI, sports, culture, science, business, personal, and anything users create

💰 Payment Methods: No real money required; Mana can be purchased optionally at roughly M100 per dollar

The Team Behind It

Manifold Markets was founded in December 2021 by Austin Chen, James Grugett, and Stephen Grugett, who serves as CEO. Austin Chen later stepped back from day to day operations to start Manifund, a related open source grant making organisation. 

The company is headquartered in Austin, Texas and is incorporated as Manifold Markets Inc. It has received seed funding from the Astral Codex Ten grant program, $1.5 million from the FTX Future Fund before the FTX collapse, and over $340,000 from the Survival and Flourishing Fund. Additional institutional investors include Leonis Capital and Soma Capital. 

The FTX Future Fund connection is worth acknowledging directly the funding was received before the FTX collapse and Manifold has continued operating without issue since then. The platform's codebase is fully open source on GitHub, meaning anyone can audit the market mechanics, the automated market maker algorithm, the resolution process, and the Mana distribution system.

The Numbers

What You Can Predict and Why the Catalog Is Unlike  Anything Else

Market Categories

Politics: Elections, congressional races, policy outcomes, presidential decisions, and international political events. One of the most active categories on the platform with deep and ongoing community engagement during major election cycles.

Technology and AI: One of the most distinctive sections on the platform. Markets on AI model capabilities, safety milestones, product launches, research publication outcomes, and the likelihood of various technological developments. The AI safety and rationalist community that forms a large part of Manifold's user base makes this category especially active and thoughtful.

Sports: Game outcome markets across major U.S. and international sports. Less central to Manifold's identity than to commercial prediction markets but present and active during major seasons.

Culture: Entertainment, social media, award shows, and cultural events. Because any user can create a market, the culture section can cover topics ranging from mainstream award shows to very specific community events.

Science: Research paper outcomes, experimental results, replication studies, and scientific milestone markets. Another area where the academic and rationalist community creates genuinely interesting markets that would never appear on a regulated commercial exchange.

Business: Company milestones, earnings outcomes, and major business events.

Personal and Community: Perhaps the most distinctive category of all. Users can create markets on their own personal decisions, life events, or community-specific questions. Will I finish this project by the end of the month? Will our team ship this feature? These markets have no equivalent on any regulated platform and represent a genuinely different use of prediction market mechanics.

Anything Else: Because Manifold is permissionless for market creation, the real answer to what you can trade on is essentially everything. Serious research questions, quirky community bets, long horizon forecasts about what the world will look lke in ten years, real time markets on breaking news. The catalog is as wide as the community's curiosity.

Market Types

Most platforms in this series offer only binary Yes/No contracts. Manifold supports several formats. Binary markets are the standard Yes/No type. Multiple choice markets let users trade on which of several options will resolve. Numeric markets let users predict where a specific number will land. Free answer markets let the community propose and vote on possible outcomes. Bounty markets let users post Mana rewards for specific research or tasks rather than trading on an outcome.

The Maniswap AMM

Manifold uses a modified automated market maker called Maniswap rather than a traditional order book. Limit orders are also available and fill against the AMM when no matching limit order exists. This hybrid approach means you can always trade on any market at any time without waiting for a counterparty. The AMM automatically adjusts prices as more trades flow in one direction, reflecting the updating collective probability estimate.

What People Are Predicting Right Now

Most Active Markets

Manifold's most traded and discussed markets in 2026 have included:

• U.S. midterm election outcome and congressional control markets
• AI capability and safety milestone contracts covering GPT 5, Claude, and Gemini developments
• 2028 presidential primary and general election futures
• Climate and environmental outcome markets
• Scientific research replication and publication outcome markets
• Personal and community markets across the platform's active user groups

What Drives the Most Engagement

AI and technology markets are the single most distinctive category on Manifold relative to every other platform in this series. The platform's deep connection to the AI safety research community means markets on AI development timelines, capability milestones, and regulation outcomes see a level of thoughtful engagement that is simply not available anywhere else. Political markets during election season are the other consistent driver of volume and community discussion.

When Markets Move Fastest

Prices shift most around:

• Breaking political news and major polling shifts
• AI model announcements and capability demonstrations
• Scientific publications and research results
• Major sports events during active seasons
• Community events specific to Manifold's user base

Most Active Categories

AI and Technology, Politics, Science, Culture, Sports,  Personal Markets

What It Costs to Use

Trading Fees

Manifold charges no fees on trades. You buy shares, the AMM adjusts the price, and if you are right you collect your winnings. There is no spread charged by the platform, no per contract fee, and no maker/taker structure. The cost of trading is embedded in the AMM's pricing mechanics, where buying shares moves the price slightly against you in a way that is standard for automated market makers.

Market Creation

Creating a market requires contributing Mana to the market's liquidity pool. The minimum contribution is M50 for a standard binary market. This Mana goes into the pool and stays there to provide liquidity for other traders. If you resolve your market correctly and no liquidity remains in the pool, you may recover some of this Mana. The creation cost is real but small, and since Mana has no cash value, it represents a commitment of your existing play balance rather than any financial cost.

Buying Mana

New users receive 1,000 Mana free. Beyond that, Mana can be purchased at roughly M100 per dollar. Purchasing is optional. Many users never spend real money on the platform at all, instead earning Mana through accurate trading, daily login bonuses, referral credits, and participation in community events.

The Charity Path

Mana can be donated to vetted charity partners at a rate of M100 per dollar. This is the only way to extract real world value from your Mana balance. The charities available include a rotating list of effective altruism aligned organisations and other vetted non-profits. The donation rate is fixed and set by Manifold rather than negotiable.

No Real Money In, No Real Money Out

This is the defining financial characteristic of the platform. There is no cash withdrawal path for Mana. There is no secondary market. There is no way to convert your Mana balance to personal cash regardless of how well you trade. The only real-world value extraction is through charity donations. If you are looking for a platform where trading skill translates into personal financial gain, Manifold is not that platform by design.

What It Gets Right and Where It Falls Short

What It Gets Right

• Completely free to use with no real money required at any point
• Global availability with no geographic restrictions or KYC
• 1,000 Mana free on sign up, start trading immediately
  Anyone can create a market on any topic in around sixty seconds
• Binary, multiple choice, numeric, free answer, and bounty market types available
• Fully open source codebase, completely transparent mechanics
• Strong forecasting calibration within 3 percentage points of actual outcomes across a large market sample
• Charity donation path lets forecasting skill create real-world charitable impact
• Active and genuinely thoughtful community of researchers, rationalists, and AI safety specialists
• Leaderboard and reputation system creates meaningful status even without financial stakes
• No regulatory risk, available to users in every country
  iOS and Android apps alongside the web version
• Manifund and Manifest conference create a broader ecosystem around the platform

Where It Falls Short

• No real money trading of any kind, Mana cannot be converted to cash
• Sweepcash real money experiment was shut down
• March 2025 with no current plans to return
• Market quality varies wildly since any user can create any market with no approval process
• Some markets sit unresolved for extended periods when creators go inactive
• Thin liquidity on less popular user-created markets can make prices unreliable
• The AMM model means prices on very thin markets can be moved significantly by a single trade
• FTX Future Fund was a significant early funder, a reputational association that lingers even though
• Manifold was not involved in the FTX collapse
• No sports coverage comparable to regulated commercial prediction markets
• The play money model means prices are sometimes less efficient than real-money markets where users have genuine financial incentive to be accurate

What Using It Feels Like

The Interface

Manifold has a clean, modern interface that works well on both the web version and the iOS and Android apps. The home screen surfaces trending and hot markets at the top with category filters along the top bar. Clicking into a market shows the current probability, a price history chart, recent trading activity, and a comment section where community members discuss the question, share evidence, and debate the probability. The comment section is one of the most distinctive parts of the Manifold experience, turning every market into a small community discussion rather than a pure trading venue.

Creating a Market

Creating your own market takes about sixty seconds. You write the question, define what resolves it to Yes or No, set a closing date, choose a starting probability, add some Mana to the liquidity pool, and publish. The market is live immediately and shows up in the platform's feed. You can add longer descriptions, link to relevant sources, and set up specific resolution criteria. The quality of market creation varies: experienced users who have been on the platform for a while tend to create well-defined markets with clear resolution criteria, while newer users sometimes create ambiguous questions that lead to disputes.

The Comment Sections

The comment sections under each market are where Manifold's community really shows itself. On major political or AI markets, you will find detailed arguments about probability, links to polls or research papers, updates as new information arrives, and genuine intellectual engagement with the question. This community discussion layer is something none of the regulated commercial prediction markets in this series have successfully built to the same depth. It makes browsing Manifold markets more like reading a thoughtful forum than scrolling through a trading app.

Mobile vs Desktop

Both are well supported. The iOS app has a 4.8 rating and the Android app is also positively reviewed. The mobile experience is clean and responsive. Desktop gives more space to browse the comment sections and price history charts that make the Manifold experience distinctive.

Support

Support is available through Discord, which is the most active channel, and through the platform's own help centre. The community itself is one of the most helpful support resources, with experienced users regularly answering questions from newer members in the Discord. Response times from the official team are generally fast given the small but engaged team. There is no phone support or live chat outside of Discord.

Volume, Activity, and What the Numbers Actually Mean

Manifold processes millions of trades across thousands of markets, but the play-money nature of the platform means volume figures are not directly comparable to real-money platforms. Because Mana has no cash value, a large volume number reflects community engagement rather than financial activity.

Market quality and liquidity vary significantly. The most active markets on major political events, AI developments, and sports championships have deep liquidity and price histories that look meaningfully efficient. User created markets on obscure topics often have minimal trading and prices that reflect a single user's initial probability estimate rather than genuine collective wisdom.

The calibration data is the most meaningful measure of Manifold's effectiveness as a forecasting tool. A 3 percentage point deviation from perfect calibration across a large sample of resolved markets is a genuinely strong result that puts the platform alongside the best research-grade forecasting tools available. That accuracy comes from a community that takes forecasting seriously even without money at stake, which is the platform's core argument for why play money can work.

Manifold hosted the Manifest forecasting conference in Berkeley, California in September 2023, and the event has become an annual gathering for the prediction market and rationalist community. The existence of a real world conference around the platform's community signals a level of engagement that goes well beyond what most play money platforms have achieved.

Who Can Use It and Why There Are No Restrictions

No Regulatory Framework Required

Manifold's play-money model is a deliberate regulatory positioning. Because Mana has no cash value and cannot be converted to personal money, the platform sits outside the regulatory surface area governed by gambling laws and financial regulators. The CFTC does not regulate it because there are no financial derivatives. State gambling commissions do not regulate it because no money is wagered. The result is a platform that is legally available in every country in the world without any of the compliance infrastructure that Kalshi, Polymarket, or ForecastEx have spent years building.

Global Access

There are no geographic restrictions on Manifold. A user in Nigeria, China, Germany, or Australia can sign up with the same sixty second process as a user in the United States. No VPN required, no state-by-state availability map, no restricted sports contracts in specific jurisdictions. The platform simply works everywhere.

No Age Requirement

Because no real money is involved, Manifold does not enforce an age restriction in the way that regulated platforms require users to be 18 or 21. The platform is suitable for students and younger users who want to develop forecasting skills without any financial exposure.

The FTX Connection

The $1.5 million from the FTX Future Fund was received before the FTX collapse. Manifold has confirmed it used these funds for operations and continued operating without issue through the collapse. The association does not reflect any operational involvement with FTX or FTX related misconduct, but it is a factual part of the platform's funding history that some users note.

The Community, the Culture, and What Makes It Unusual

The Rationalist and EA Connection

Manifold has a stronger connection to the rationalist and effective altruism communities than any other prediction market platform. The Astral Codex Ten grant was its first funding source. Its early users came largely from those communities. The AI safety markets are driven by users who follow AI development with genuine technical understanding. The charity donation mechanic was designed specifically for EA aligned users who want their forecasting skill to create real world charitable impact.

This community character gives Manifold a distinctive culture. Discussions on major markets tend to be more evidence driven and less emotionally charged than what you find in the comment sections of sports betting platforms or political prediction markets on other sites. Users regularly update their probability estimates publicly when new information arrives, something that real money traders on commercial platforms almost never do openly.

How It Sits Against the Competition

Manifold is not really a competitor to any of these platforms in the traditional sense. It serves a different purpose: practicing and improving forecasting skill, engaging with a community of thoughtful people, and exploring probability in a zero-risk environment. The closest comparison is Metaculus, which is also a free research-grade forecasting tool, though Manifold's market-style trading mechanics and open market creation make it a different kind of experience.

Should You Use Manifold?

If you have ever wanted to try prediction markets but were not ready to put real money into them, Manifold is the obvious answer. You sign up in sixty seconds, get 1,000 Mana to start with, and can create or trade on markets about literally anything from the state of AI development to who wins the World Cup to whether you will finish a personal project by next month. There is no financial risk and no regulatory friction.

The community is the platform's real asset. Manifold has built something that no amount of marketing spend can create overnight: a group of genuinely curious, thoughtful people who treat forecasting as a skill worth developing seriously even without money at stake. The AI and technology markets in particular reflect a depth of community knowledge that commercial prediction markets with real money on the line have not managed to match.

The honest limitation is that without financial stakes, prices are sometimes less efficient than on real-money platforms. Users who lose Mana can simply earn more through daily bonuses and accurate trading without the sting that a real financial loss carries. That changes the incentive structure in ways that can make some markets less accurate than their equivalents on Kalshi or Polymarket. For most topics and most questions the calibration is still very good. But for anyone who wants prices that are maximally sharpened by genuine financial risk, a real-money platform will give you that and Manifold will not.

Use Manifold to build your track record, develop your probability intuition, explore topics you are genuinely curious about, and engage with one of the best forecasting communities on the internet. Then, when you are ready to test those skills with real money, the regulated platforms in this series will still be there.

Works well for: Anyone new to prediction markets who wants to learn without financial risk, researchers and students who want to track community probability estimates on serious questions, AI safety and rationalist community members for whom Manifold is already a natural home, people who want to create markets on topics no commercial platform would approve, users in any country without geographic restrictions, anyone who values open source transparency and community driven forecasting.

Probably not the right fit for: Anyone who wants real financial returns from their forecasting skill, traders who want the sharpest possible prices driven by genuine financial incentives, users primarily interested in sports markets at commercial depth, anyone who came specifically looking for a regulated financial product.

⭐ Overall Rating: 7.5 / 10

The best free prediction market in the world and genuinely the right starting point for anyone new to forecasting, with a community and calibration track record that puts many real money platforms to shame.