Forum

What Forum does

Forum (forum.market) is a centralized exchange that plans to offer perpetual-style futures contracts on proprietary Attention Indices, letting users take long or short positions on the cultural relevance of topics ranging from individual celebrities (MrBeast, Drake, Bad Bunny) to brands, games, AI companies, and broader cultural phenomena. The platform is positioned for two distinct customer segments: brands and companies seeking to hedge cultural and marketing-spend risk, and individual speculators or traders seeking direct exposure to attention trends without relying on equity performance. Founded in 2025 and backed by Y Combinator, Forum is currently in pre-launch with a waitlist-based onboarding model and a public ROE leaderboard to drive community engagement.

The underlying architecture consists of an Ethereum Layer-2-based exchange running a proprietary Attention Index that aggregates real-time engagement signals from YouTube, Reddit, X (Twitter), and Google Trends. The index methodology uses log transformations, 15-minute baselines, source-level weighting to down-weight inflation-prone signals, and EMA smoothing with a 12-hour half-life. Trading infrastructure includes 5-year cash-settled perpetual-style futures, a funding-rate mechanism to keep market prices aligned with index values, cross-portfolio margining with a 10% maintenance margin requirement, mark-price calculation with EMA clamping to deter manipulation-driven liquidations, 1x leverage (no margin amplification), and internal automated market making without third-party market makers. Access is provided through a web interface (forum.market) and a full REST/WebSocket API with HMAC-SHA256 authentication.

Business model and go-to-market are product-led and community-driven: the platform is currently zero-fee across all trades with pay-as-you-go execution, and fee tiers will be published only if fees are instituted. Distribution relies on organic social (X, LinkedIn), an active Discord community, a public leaderboard, referral-driven waitlist access, and API documentation targeting programmatic/quantitative traders. The company closed a $500,000 seed round on 2026-03-24 led by Y Combinator with participation from Pioneer Fund; no paying customers or revenue have been disclosed for the attention-exchange product.

Name

Forum

Legal name

Forum Markets Group Inc.

Website

https://forum.market

Company type

Private

Founded year

2026

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Prediction and Attention Derivatives Exchange

NAICS

Securities and Commodity Exchanges (52321), Securities and Commodity Exchanges (523210), Commodity Contracts Intermediation (52316), Commodity Contracts Intermediation (523160)

SIC

Security & Commodity Brokers, Dealers, Exchanges & Services (6200), Commodity Contracts Brokers & Dealers (6221), Asset-Backed Securities (6189)

akta.pro primary industry

Perpetual Futures (Perps) Venues & Protocols (FSADAGAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Algorithmic Trading & Execution Platforms (FSAFANAN), Interest-Based Communities & Forums (BPAMABAC)

Keywords

• Attention market exchange
• Perpetual futures trading
• Cultural risk hedging
• Engagement index derivatives
• Sentiment trading platform

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Trading Fees: Currently no fees charged on any trades. The platform is in early stage with plans to potentially institute fees in the future.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Forum operates a centralized exchange that converts online engagement into tradable Attention Indices and offers 5-year, cash-settled perpetual-style futures contracts on those indices. Users go long or short on the cultural relevance of topics such as artists, films, brands, and public figures, with cross-portfolio margining and an internal market-making system providing liquidity.

Product overview

Forum is a centralized exchange offering exposure to engagement-backed assets through a single integrated platform. The core offering comprises the Forum Exchange, which allows trading of perpetual-style futures contracts on Attention Indices. The Attention Index aggregates real-time engagement metrics from YouTube, Reddit, X (Twitter), and Google Trends into measurable, tradable indices. Perpetual-style futures (5-year, cash-settled contracts) provide synthetic long/short exposure to attention movements. Supporting features include zero-fee trading, 1x leverage, internal market making, funding rate mechanisms for price alignment, cross portfolio margining, and a public leaderboard. The platform is accessible via web interface and REST/WebSocket API.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Forum Exchange A centralized exchange where users create accounts, fund positions, and trade perpetual-style futures contracts on Attention Indices tied to online engagement around topics such as artists, movies, brands, and public figures.
• Attention Index A proprietary quantitative measure of public interest in a topic, aggregating engagement signals from YouTube, Reddit, X (Twitter), and Google Trends into a weighted index that serves as the spot reference for the platform's futures contracts.
• Perpetual-style Futures Contracts Cash-settled, 5-year perpetual-style futures contracts that provide synthetic long or short exposure to Attention Index values, anchored to the underlying index with a funding rate mechanism that aligns market prices with index values.
• Forum API (REST and WebSocket) Public REST API and WebSocket feed enabling programmatic access to market data, order management, and account endpoints, with HMAC-SHA256 authenticated API keys supporting read and trade permissions for automated strategies.

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability3 records

Feature4 records

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Hyperliquid: High-performance on-chain perpetual futures exchange with an order-book model and aggressive liquidity incentives. Comparable to Forum in venue architecture (central limit order book, perpetual contracts, cross-margining, funding rate), and is the primary benchmark Forum's venue experience will be measured against by sophisticated perpetual-futures traders.
• dYdX: Leading decentralized perpetual futures exchange with deep liquidity in crypto perpetual contracts. Closest technical analog to Forum's perpetual-futures-on-novel-underlying architecture, demonstrating the perpetual-futures-venue playbook (cross-margining, funding rate, mark price) that Forum has adapted to attention indices rather than crypto spot.
• GMX: Decentralized perpetual exchange using a GLP-style liquidity pool rather than an order book. Comparable to Forum as a perpetual-futures venue targeting novel underlyings, but GMX's pool-based model is structurally different from Forum's order-book approach with internal market making.
• Drift Protocol: Solana-based perpetual futures DEX with cross-margining and a virtual AMM combined with an order book. Comparable to Forum in offering perpetual contracts with cross-margin risk management, though Drift focuses on crypto perps while Forum focuses on attention indices.
• Polymarket: Decentralized prediction market on Polygon where users trade binary contracts on real-world events including cultural, entertainment, and current-affairs outcomes. Most directly comparable to Forum because both venues create a tradable price layer for attention/relevance to cultural topics, with the key difference that Polymarket uses event-outcome contracts while Forum uses perpetual futures on a continuous attention index.
• Kalshi: CFTC-regulated prediction market exchange in the US where users trade event contracts on economics, politics, weather, and culture. Directly comparable to Forum's regulated attention-market ambition — both target US retail with regulated event-style contracts — though Kalshi's contracts are binary event outcomes rather than continuous attention indices.

Broad incumbents

• Bybit: Large centralized cryptocurrency derivatives exchange offering perpetual futures on a wide range of underlyings, including some novel asset classes. Comparable to Forum as a centralized venue for perpetual futures trading, though Bybit operates at vastly greater scale and focuses on crypto spot pairs rather than attention indices.
• Binance: World's largest crypto exchange by volume, with the deepest perpetual futures liquidity across hundreds of markets. The dominant incumbent Forum must contend with if attention-market derivatives ever migrate onto major centralized exchanges, representing both a competitive threat and a potential future distribution/listing partner.

Emerging players

• Hedgehog Markets: Smaller prediction/derivatives venue focused on social and creator-economy outcomes. Adjacent peer to Forum in targeting culturally relevant trading instruments, though at a smaller scale and with a less developed product offering.
• Augur: Early decentralized prediction market on Ethereum for trading event outcomes. Comparable to Forum as one of the original attempts to create a tradable layer for real-world/cultural events, though Augur's UI and liquidity challenges illustrate the execution risks that Forum must navigate.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/forumdotmarket
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/forum-markets-group

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors2 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Forum