| name | context-research-market-scanner |
| description | Find interesting prediction markets by volume, trend, liquidity, or topic |
Market Scanner
Discover and rank active markets by trading interest, liquidity, and momentum.
When to Use
The user wants to find interesting markets to research or trade — by topic, volume, trend, or liquidity.
Steps
-
List markets with filters — context_list_markets with params:
query: keyword search (e.g., "bitcoin", "election")
status: "active": only tradeable markets
sortBy: "volume" (most traded), "trending" (gaining momentum), "new" (recently created), "ending" (closing soon), "chance" (highest probability)
limit: number of results (default varies)
- SDK:
ctx.markets.list({ query: "bitcoin", status: "active", sortBy: "volume", limit: 10 })
- CLI:
context markets list --status active --sort-by volume --limit 10
-
Get quotes for each market — context_get_quotes to check bid-ask spreads:
- Tight spread (1–3c) = liquid, easy to trade
- Wide spread (9c+) = illiquid, use limit orders
-
Rank by your criteria:
- High volume + tight spread = most liquid, best for trading
- Trending + wide spread = gaining interest but still illiquid, potential early opportunity
- Ending soon + active = markets approaching resolution, prices should converge to outcome
-
Cross-reference with oracle — use context_get_oracle for the oracle's evidence summary. If you need a numeric oracle quote for comparison, switch to the SDK and call ctx.markets.latestOracleQuote(marketId).
Gotchas
sortBy: "trending" is relative. A market can be "trending" with very low absolute volume. Always check volume alongside trend.
- Results are paginated. Use the
cursor from the response to fetch the next page. SDK: pass cursor in params.
- Market categories may be broad. Use
query for specific topics rather than relying on category alone.
- Stale quotes. If a market has very low activity, bid/ask may be from hours ago. Check
last trade price and context_price_history for recency.
Verification
- Confirm you got results: check that the returned
markets array is non-empty.
- For each market of interest, verify it has
status: "active" and reasonable quotes (bid and ask both present).
See Also