Exciting News! Sweepstakes Markets Are Now Live on Manifold!
We're thrilled to announce that you can win and withdraw real money from our new sweepstakes markets.
Verify your account to receive a special sweepcash gift! Make sure to look at the size of your gift on your profile page, as it will provide context for other decisions we have implemented (more details below).
Key Updates:
Since our initial announcement a couple of months ago, we’ve made some significant changes to the sweepstakes model that we believe will enhance your experience:
- Separation of play-money and sweepstakes markets: We heard you (and apparently so did our lawyers) 😆. Questions with sweepstakes enabled will share UI elements and comments but have two separate contracts, one using Mana and one using sweepcash.
- No more prizepoints or prizepoint markets: Instead, we now have sweepcash and sweepstakes markets!
- Sweepstakes markets use sweepcash to participate and winners earn sweepcash they can withdraw to their bank. By default, all markets will still use only mana, but selected markets will be sweepstakes enabled allowing users to toggle between the two separate contracts on the market page.
- All prizepoints will be converted back to mana. This will make sense when you go to claim your gifted sweepcash.
- See more below in, “A special gift for Manifold user,” to learn what this means for your donations etc.
- Mana and sweepcash are non-fungible: Mana is now purely play money with no withdrawal options, not even for charity donations. Sweepcash, on the other hand, will be the sole means to participate in sweepstakes markets. Sweepcash winnings can be withdrawn to real money, however, it must be won from a market resolving in your favor. Sweepcash received from bonuses or closing a position early will not be eligible to be withdrawn until you have used it to win a market.
- Eligibility: Now the bad news… only some US residents will be eligible to receive sweepcash and participate in sweepstakes markets.
- 46 states are eligible except Delaware, Idaho, Michigan, Washington, and Washington D.C. which are NOT eligible.
- International users are NOT eligible, although we are working to expand to more countries as soon as possible.
- Users from locations not eligible can still use Manifold normally for everything non-sweepstakes.
- All users must complete enhanced KYC to participate in sweepstakes. Users do not have to complete KYC to participate with mana.
- Finally, we are updating our T&Cs to state that only users 18 and older may use Manifold. This includes both the play-money markets and the sweepstakes markets. Users will need to confirm their age when completing KYC.
- Beta: Our sweepstakes ****markets are currently in beta and your feedback and bug reports are crucial to helping us refine the experience. With your help, we aim to officially launch and kick off our marketing campaign in just a few days!
For a detailed guide on how sweepstakes work, please check out our Sweepstakes FAQ.
Special gift for Manifold Users
As a token of our appreciation for your participation on Manifold, we are offering a one-time sweepcash gift that may be larger for more active users. As a reminder, this gifted sweepcash cannot be withdrawn directly but can be used to participate in sweepstakes markets. To claim your sweepcash, complete KYC and click to claim by Election Day (November 5th). Thank you for being a part of our community and helping us shape the future of Manifold!
We hope to allow international users who are not currently eligible to participate in sweepstakes to claim their sweepcash if eligible in the future. As we can’t promise this, as an alternative, users who are not eligible for sweepstakes, or who are, but do not wish to complete KYC to claim sweepcash, may email us ([email protected]) by the end of the year and we will be happy to make a charitable donation on their behalf!
While we are excited for you to share this huge change with your friends and family, we expect the experience to be much better once we officially launch in a few days. So, you might prefer to wait until then. We are only announcing the beta here to you guys 😉.