From Decrypt · By Decrypt Staff
In brief
NEXTPredict bought contracts on Kalshi that pay out if more than half of flights into JFK are canceled on October 21.
The premium was $12,000 against roughly $3 million of coverage, the organizer's full investment in the event.
Susquehanna took the other side as market maker, in what the parties call the first conference hedged on a prediction market.
The organizers of a prediction markets conference have hedged the conference on a prediction market, paying a $12,000 premium for contracts that would return around $3 million if New York's airports seize up the day before it opens.
The trade, executed through Kalshi with Susquehanna as market maker, settles on whether more than half of flights scheduled to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport are canceled on October 21, the main travel day before NEXTPredict's October 22-23 summit at Convene in Hudson Yards. The $3 million represents the organizer's total investment in the event.
This is me announcing a conference that never happened.
Today we hedged our next one on a prediction market. $3 million in coverage for a $12,000 premium, executed through @Kalshi with @SusquehannaSIG as market maker.
First time anyone in our event industry has done it. Here… pic.twitter.com/UtiA1xTXJw
— Pierre Lindh (@Pierreobv) July 28, 2026
The threshold was chosen as a proxy, Pierre Lindh, co-founder and managing director of NEXT.io, told Decrypt. “We had a conversation with Kalshi and Susquehanna, and we said, ‘Why don’t we use airport disruption as the vector?’ Because if there is 50% flight cancellation from JFK on the 21st of October, it means that something has happened in the world."
The risk is all too real. Lindh opened a thread on the trade with an image of himself announcing a conference in 2020 that never took place. "A few months later the entire world locked down and we lost 100% of our revenue for the entire year," he wrote.
Across 13 years and around 800 events the exposure has recurred. A blizzard hit New York weeks before the company's March show there, and conflict in the Middle East escalated shortly before it opened, leaving delegates unable to travel and the company processing refunds, he said. By May, with its flagship Malta event approaching, the worry was European airports running short of fuel.
"Event insurance is focused around what happens inside the venue," Lindh told Decrypt, describing cover for fires, rigging failures and injuries. Standard force majeure cover typically only pays out when an event is canceled. If a hurricane closes the airport, he said, "it doesn't mean that we have to cancel our conference. It probably means that we will need to organize it but short-handed." The costs are already sunk and the revenue is already lost, but the policy may never trigger, he told trade publication G3 Newswire. "The material financial damage has already happened, but standard event insurance might not trigger because the conference itself went ahead."