The basics
CrimeLine is a peer-to-peer prediction market on official city crime data. You never bet against a house — you trade against other players, and the official number decides who wins.
The whole game in five sentences
1. Every morning, each city gets a line for each market — like Houston · Total Crime · 287.5.
2. You pick over or under. Your order matches against players who take the opposite side.
3. Through the day, reported incidents accumulate in the live counter — every market stays visible and moves.
4. At noon ET the next day, one fixed snapshot of the licensed data feed locks the official number.
5. Over the line, overs win; under it, unders win. Settlement posts on-chain and payouts land in USDC automatically.
Market types
Six ways to read a city. Each settles from the same snapshot — the difference is the question being asked.
| Market | The question | Settles on |
|---|---|---|
| Over / Under | Does the city finish above or below its line? | Count or Score |
| Most Crime Today | Which city reports the most? | Field |
| Lowest Crime | Which city stays quietest? | Field |
| Biggest Increase | Which city jumps most vs yesterday (%)? | Field |
| Exact Range | Which bucket does the final number land in? | Count |
| CrimeLine Index | The severity-weighted Score across all launch cities. | Score |
Sub-markets
Over/Under runs per category too: Total Crime · Violent Crime · Vehicle Thefts · Burglaries · Robberies. A category market counts only qualifying incidents of that category.
The line
Where lines come from
Lines post each morning, priced from each city's historical baseline (same weekday, season, and recent trend) plus the day's early reporting pace. Lines are fixed once posted — the price of each side moves with the market, the line itself does not.
Every line ends in .5 so a market can never land exactly on it — there are no pushes on CrimeLine. One side always wins.
Scoring & severity
Not all crime counts the same. Count markets use raw incident counts. Score markets weight every incident by severity, so one violent felony moves the number more than eight shoplifting reports.
The severity weights (illustrative — final rubric is fixed and published before any market opens)
Worked example — one day in one city
120 petty theft · 30 vandalism · 22 vehicle theft · 14 burglary · 6 robbery · 8 assault
// count market settles on
Count = 120+30+22+14+6+8 = 200
// score market settles on
Score = 120×1 + 30×2 + 22×3 + 14×4 + 6×6 + 8×8 = 402
Same day, two different numbers — a quiet-looking day with two extra assaults moves the Score sharply while barely moving the Count. That's the point.
What counts as a qualifying incident
An incident qualifies when it is officially reported by the city's police department, timestamped inside the market day (12:00 AM – 11:59 PM local city time), and categorized into one of the covered offense types by the licensed data provider. Duplicates, reclassifications, and non-covered categories are excluded by the provider's standardization — the same way for every market and every player.
Live data & settlement
The pipeline
Police departments file reports → the licensed feed standardizes them → the live counter climbs all day → the noon ET snapshot locks the number → settlement posts on-chain.
Reports lag real time — a 9 PM incident may not appear until morning. That's why settlement is a fixed-time snapshot the following day, not a midnight cutoff, and why the live projection runs ahead of the raw counter during the day.
The provider & fairness
What settles markets is public record. Qualifying incidents are the ones city police departments publish — CrimeLine exercises no editorial judgment over what counts.
An independent, licensed data company aggregates and standardizes that record into the settlement feed. CrimeLine cannot add, remove, or edit a single report. The provider is contracted and publicly named in this rulebook before the first market opens — no market will ever run on an unnamed source.
One feed, no early looks. Every player, every market, and CrimeLine itself see the same numbers at the same moment. There is no premium data tier.
No stake in the outcome. The protocol's only revenue is a fee on winnings, charged whichever side wins — CrimeLine gains nothing from a number landing over or under.
Finality & edge cases
The snapshot is final. If the provider later revises a number, settled markets do not reopen — finality is what makes instant payouts possible.
Data outage: if the provider cannot deliver a city's number by the snapshot deadline plus a 6-hour grace window, that city's markets for the day are voided and all stakes returned in full. Nobody wins on missing data.
Ties in field markets: if two cities tie for Most/Lowest/Biggest, the market splits winnings equally across backers of the tied cities.
Payouts & fees
Peer-to-peer pools
Every market is a pool of matched orders. The percentages you see — O 61% / U 39% — are the crowd's live prices: the cost of one side is its implied probability, and winning pays out the whole matched pool to the correct side, pro-rata to stake.
CrimeLine's only revenue is a small fee on winnings (fixed and published before launch). We never hold your funds, never set prices, and never take the other side of your trade.
Getting paid
Settlement executes on Solana within minutes of the snapshot. Winnings land directly in your wallet in USDC — no claim button, no withdrawal queue, no minimums. Every settlement transaction is public and auditable forever.
Fair play
One line for everyone. Every player sees the same lines, the same live counter, and the same snapshot — there is no premium data tier that settles differently.
No insider positions. CrimeLine, its team, and the data provider are prohibited from holding positions in any market.
Market integrity. Attempting to manipulate underlying data (including filing false reports) is fraud; associated positions are voided and reported.
Eligibility. CrimeLine is for eligible users in permitted jurisdictions only, 18+ (21+ where required). Availability depends on local law.