Did We Create a Rip in the Fabric of Spacetime?

Welcome to the Prediction Game. In December, over 1,000 participants filled out 20 questions to predict the future in 2021. We'll be following up and tracking those predictions as the year unfolds. We’ll also explore the science and mysticism of predicting the future.

We’re only one month into 2021, and it has felt like a decade. In America, we’ve held an election and then we held an insurrection. We impeached a president, and then we inaugurated a new one. We did all of that over a 3 week period. And the weird thing is, many of you predicted it! 

You correctly predicted the results of the Georgia Senate race, down to a tenth of a percent.

Someone predicted the violence that broke out on January 6th in astonishing detail.

And many of you predicted Donald Trump’s removal from social media down to the date.

You even predicted that GameStop & AMC... would go bankrupt (okay, so we missed that one.)

Over the last month as we’ve pored over the predictions, we kept saying the same thing over and over: “did we somehow open up some sort of hole in the space-time continuum?”

What we’ve experienced over the last month has been unprecedented, and yet, we all saw it coming, together. 

First, let me thank the over 1,010 individuals who submitted their predictions. And also, let me say a big welcome to the folks joining us on this journey who did not make any predictions but want to learn more about the future and how we as humans continuously try to predict it. You’re in the right place.

We're going to dive deeply into the data and show you what many of you predicted and what that might mean about the future. We're also throwing a new twist into the game. Using the average / top answers below, we've created a Wisdom of the Crowd player. Forecasting research tells us that averaging the predictions of thousands of people typically yields the most reliable results. We'll keep track of how the Wisdom of the Crowd player is performing throughout the year, and if the winner of The Prediction Game also happens to beat the Wisdom of the Crowd (which, theoretically should be the hardest one to beat), they'll get an extra prize.

It’s still early days for 2021 and The Prediction Game, so we don’t have a leader board to share with you yet, but we do have an update on how the Every Index (our $1,000 fund invested by friends of the Every, and the prize for winning The Prediction Game) is doing. 

Beyond these updates, we’re working on content focused on the science and mysticism of predicting the future. In the next few weeks, we’ll kick things off with a deep dive into Superforecasting. After that, we’ll explore the worlds of palmistry, stock trading, and astronomy. We can’t wait to go on this journey with you. 

Without further ado, here’s the future you’ve predicted:

The 2021 Prediction Game - Questions & Insights

📈 Where will the DOW close on the last day of the year in 2021?

The average of all predictions tells us that the DOW will close at $37,423, which would be a 22% gain from 2020. For some context, the DOW grew by 22.3% in 2019, but it only grew by 7.3% in 2020 (wonder why that is 🤔). 81.6% of participants believe the DOW will grow in 2021, and 18.4% of them believe that the DOW will shrink. 

🪙 What is the highest price that Bitcoin will reach in 2021?

Things get a bit more interesting on the Bitcoin front. The average tells us that the highest price that Bitcoin will reach in 2021 is $38,565. Bitcoin has already reached a peak of $41,986 this year, and if that remains its highest price in 2021, we’ll be off by roughly 8%. 16 participants (or 1.6% of all participants) predicted a peak of $42,000 so they’re looking pretty smart right now. 

💸 This company will go bankrupt and/or shut down in 2021.

The single most predicted company to go bankrupt? AMC Theaters, with 19.28% of participants predicting their demise. How Reddit investors will impact that result is anyone's guess at this point. Other popular options were Nikola Motor Company with 7.43% of predictions, and WeWork with 3.71% of predictions.

💰 This company will IPO in 2021 (that has not yet announced)

18.22% of participants predicted that Stripe would go public this year. And the 2.23% of you who predicted Bumble would go public, enjoy your 5 points! The dating app company filed their IPO on January 15th. 

⚖️ Other than Facebook, what other company will be the target of a Federal antitrust lawsuit in 2021?

Google / Alphabet was the overwhelming favorite to be the target of a Federal antitrust lawsuit, with 56% of participants making them their prediction. Google is already facing some antitrust cases brought by a handful of states and the Department of Justice, but has yet to be sued by the FTC, in the way that Facebook has. Due to some confusion around the wording of this question (my bad, y’all) this might turn out to be a bit of a freebie.

🦠 When will the US have administered 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine?

The most popular answer for this question is April, with 18.6% of predictions. This looks to be pretty spot on given our current pace (according to the New York Times). Another 19% of participants think it’ll happen even sooner, and the remaining 62% believe it will happen after April or not at all. 

🇬🇧 Will Boris Johnson still be PM by the end of 2021?

62% of participants believe that Boris Johnson will indeed remain Prime Minister by the end of 2021. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

🇺🇸 Select all of the policies the Biden/Harris administration will enact in 2021.

90% of participants predicted that the Biden/Harris administration would rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, and guess what? They were correct! We did it folks! 75.5% also predicted that the Biden/Harris administration would successfully pass another Economic Relief package, which is currently being negotiated in Congress. Speaking of Congress....

🗳 Who will win the Georgia Senate races?

Participants got this one exactly right. Rev. Raphael Warnock (58.5% of predictions) and Jon Ossoff (52.2% of predictions) won their Georgia Senate races. Most remarkable of all? Losing candidate David Perdue (49.4% of predictions) received… exactly 49.4% of the vote in Georgia. 🤯

🏅 Which country will win the most medals (total) at the 2021 summer Olympics?

If the 2021 Tokyo Olympics even end up happening (and it’s a big if right now), an overwhelming majority (71.8%) predicted that the United States would walk away with the most medals (USA ! USA! 🇺🇸). In 2nd place is China with 22.8% of predictions (中华人民共和国! 中华人民共和国! 🇨🇳).

⚽️ Who will win the English Premier League?

42.8% of participants (including yours truly) predicted that my beloved Liverpool Football Club would win the Premier League this year. After their shocking drop in form over the last few weeks, we may all be regretting that prediction 😫. Behind them? 2nd place (as of right now) Manchester United with 15.8% of predictions.

⚽️ Who will win the UEFA Champions League?

Current title-holders Bayern Munich have come out on top to keep their champion status, with 30.8% of predictions. Behind them are Barcelona (17%) and Liverpool (11.9%).

🏈 Who will win the Super Bowl?

An overwhelming 43% of participants predicted that the Kansas City Chiefs would win the Super Bowl compared to only 1.8% of participants who predicted their opponents, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We’ve got ourselves a real underdog fight on our hands, and we’ll get to know the answer to this one on February 7th. 

🎶 Who will win the Grammy's Album of the Year?

Taylor Swift is the overwhelming favorite to win the Grammy for Album of the Year, with 51.4% of predictions. We’ll learn the answer to that question on March 14. 

💿 Name an artist that you think will drop a surprise album in 2021.

28.14% of participants believe that Kanye West will drop a surprise album in 2021. Most surprising of all though, would be if Michael Jackson (who has been dead since 2009) dropped a surprise album, which 2 people predicted. 🧟‍♂️

🏆 Name an actor / actress that you think will win a major award (Golden Globe, Emmy, or Oscar) in 2021.

Sadly, Chadwick Boseman is also no longer with us, but unlike MJ, it makes a lot more sense for him to top this question. 14.11% of participants believe he will win a major award this year. Coming in last place for this question is Keanu Reef (4 predictions) who I can only assume is Keanu Reeves' much less popular cousin.

🎭 What month in 2021 will Broadway officially re-open?

18.2% of participants believe that Broadway will re-open in September. June was a very close second, with 16.9% of predictions.

🔮 The Big Predictions 

And then we arrive at the Big Predictions. And boy, did they get interesting. Let’s talk about some predictions that have already come true. 

“Trump supporters rally in Washington DC on the day electoral college votes are counted, sparking violence that results in 2 dead by gunshot.”

We were pretty shocked when we read this one. Sadly, the death toll currently stands at 7 individuals. These horrific anti-democratic acts of sedition then lead to another set of predictions coming true…

“Twitter will ban @realdonaldtrump from twitter and it will happen within two weeks of Biden's Inauguration” 

6 participants predicted that Donald Trump would be removed / banned from Twitter. The one above was by far the most accurate (and deserving of 15 points) by also predicting the timing. 

Several other big predictions have come true, including Andrew Yang announcing his candidacy for NYC mayor, major tech workers unionizing, a Bachelor Nation couple splitting up (Sorry, Clare and Dale), and Jake Paul announcing another boxing match (Sorry, rest of the world). 

Then, there are the big predictions that have not (yet) come true but are still worth a mention, such as:

The oddly specific: "Aliens will contact us on June 8th but it will be kept a secret by those in the know. " 👽

The tragic: "The last episode of Jeopardy ever will be filmed" 😭

The ominously vague: "Google will destroy 2021." 💥

and the reassuringly hopeful: "Taylor Swift will save 2021." 💁🏼‍♀️

We’ll continue to reveal more big predictions throughout the year, from the shockingly accurate to the hilariously strange.

An Update On the Every Index

The Every Index is currently up by 7.14%, with Ethereum (ETH), selected by both Sari Azout and Seyi Taylor, as the best performing asset (80.66% gain). As it stands, the winner of The Prediction Game would be taking away $1,071.35.

That's it for now! We'll see you next time, when we'll explore superforecasters, and how you can learn to think like one.