What happens to my money if the platform disappears tomorrow?

The wallet and its balance live on Polygon, not on a company server, so they survive the company. With your exported private key you can load the same wallet into any standard wallet app and move the funds yourself, without anyone's permission or cooperation. That is the practical meaning of self-custody, and it is the one category of risk this arrangement genuinely removes.

If I lose my private key, can support recover it for me?

No, and that is the unavoidable other side of the trade. Nobody else holds a copy of the key, which is exactly why nobody else can freeze or spend your balance — but it also means there is no password reset and no account recovery. If you export the key, store it the way you would store cash, because anyone who has it has the money.

Do I have to export my key for any of this to matter?

Most people never export theirs, and the protection still holds. What makes a balance yours rather than borrowed is that the option exists and cannot be withdrawn, not that you exercise it. The export is worth doing once if you are holding a meaningful amount for a long time, mostly so you have confirmed for yourself that the door opens.

Can my account be frozen or closed?

Your balance cannot be frozen, because freezing it would require the private key and nobody else holds it. Access to an interface is a separate question from access to the money: even in the worst case where an app is unavailable to you, the funds remain reachable on-chain with your key. That separation is the whole point of the design.

What is the biggest risk for someone opening their first position?

Being wrong with too much money on it. A prediction market share pays nothing at all when it resolves against you — there is no partial refund and no closing price to salvage — so the loss is total on that position. Size accordingly, and treat a run of correct calls as ordinary variance rather than proof that the next one is safe.

BASICS

Is it safe? Where your money actually sits

August 10, 2026 · 8 MIN READ

Your balance is not an entry on a company's ledger. It sits in a wallet whose keys you hold and can export at any time — which removes one whole category of risk, and leaves several others exactly where they were.

Key takeaways

Your balance sits in a wallet whose private key you hold, so nobody at the platform can freeze it, spend it on your behalf, or lose it in a failure of their own.
Self-custody removes counterparty risk and nothing else. A share that resolves against you is worth exactly zero, and that is the normal outcome for roughly half of all positions.
The contracts holding funds are audited and have handled billions in volume without a major on-chain exploit — strong evidence, but not a proof that smart-contract risk is zero.
Most unpleasant surprises are definitional rather than predictive: a market settles on the question as written, not on what you assumed it meant.
You can export the private key at any time and load the wallet into any standard wallet app. A platform you cannot walk away from is custodial no matter what it calls itself.

"Is it safe?" is the first thing almost everyone asks, and it is really two questions wearing one coat. Can someone take my money? and can I lose my money? have very different answers.

What is the difference between a custodial and a self-custodial balance?

A custodial balance is an entry in a company's database; a self-custodial balance is a wallet whose private key you hold. On a normal exchange, the coins are pooled in the company's wallets and the figure on screen is a record of what they owe you. That arrangement works right up until it doesn't — and every exchange failure of the last decade has been a variation of the same story.

Here the wallet is yours. It is created for you when you open the app, but the keys stay with you: you can export the private key, move funds out without asking permission, and revoke signing access whenever you like. No one can freeze the balance or spend it on your behalf, because no one else holds the key.

	Custodial exchange	Self-custodial wallet
Who holds the key	The company	You
Your balance is	A record of what they owe you	Funds you control on-chain
Can it be frozen	Yes, by them	No — it would take your key
If the company fails	You join the creditor queue	The wallet is unaffected
Withdrawal	Requires their approval	Requires nothing but you

That is a real, structural difference. It does not make you safe. It makes you responsible. How it works walks through the same mechanics from the other end.

What does self-custody not protect you from?

Four risks survive intact, and it is worth being blunt about them.

You can lose your entire stake. A share that resolves against you is worth exactly zero. This is not an edge case — it is the normal outcome for roughly half of all positions, which is why how you size a position matters more than how you pick one.

Smart-contract risk is never zero. The contracts holding funds are audited and have handled billions in volume without a major on-chain exploit, which is strong evidence but not a proof.

Thin markets fill worse than they look. A quoted price is only as real as the size sitting behind it. On a quiet market your order can fill meaningfully worse than the number you tapped — the reason your fill misses the quote is worth understanding before it happens to you.

Resolution can surprise you. Markets settle on the question as written. Most nasty surprises are definitional rather than predictive, so read the resolution rules first.

Can you export your private key and walk away?

Yes, at any time. You can export the private key and load the wallet into any standard wallet app — the funds are on Polygon and behave like any other on-chain balance. If self-custody is going to mean anything, you have to be able to leave.

Most people never use this. It matters anyway: the option is what makes the balance yours rather than borrowed. A platform you cannot walk away from is custodial no matter what it calls itself.

The honest summary

Nobody can take your balance. You can absolutely lose it — by being wrong, which is the entire point of the instrument. Treat those as two separate facts and the risk picture becomes much easier to think about. Stake what you can afford to lose. 18+.

Common questions

What happens to my money if the platform disappears tomorrow?: The wallet and its balance live on Polygon, not on a company server, so they survive the company. With your exported private key you can load the same wallet into any standard wallet app and move the funds yourself, without anyone's permission or cooperation. That is the practical meaning of self-custody, and it is the one category of risk this arrangement genuinely removes.
If I lose my private key, can support recover it for me?: No, and that is the unavoidable other side of the trade. Nobody else holds a copy of the key, which is exactly why nobody else can freeze or spend your balance — but it also means there is no password reset and no account recovery. If you export the key, store it the way you would store cash, because anyone who has it has the money.
Do I have to export my key for any of this to matter?: Most people never export theirs, and the protection still holds. What makes a balance yours rather than borrowed is that the option exists and cannot be withdrawn, not that you exercise it. The export is worth doing once if you are holding a meaningful amount for a long time, mostly so you have confirmed for yourself that the door opens.
Can my account be frozen or closed?: Your balance cannot be frozen, because freezing it would require the private key and nobody else holds it. Access to an interface is a separate question from access to the money: even in the worst case where an app is unavailable to you, the funds remain reachable on-chain with your key. That separation is the whole point of the design.
What is the biggest risk for someone opening their first position?: Being wrong with too much money on it. A prediction market share pays nothing at all when it resolves against you — there is no partial refund and no closing price to salvage — so the loss is total on that position. Size accordingly, and treat a run of correct calls as ordinary variance rather than proof that the next one is safe.