# Listing and liquidity assessment · Draft 0.3

## What public precedent establishes

[Kalshi's weather-market explanation](https://help.kalshi.com/en/articles/13823837-weather-markets) describes listed temperature and precipitation questions with named settlement sources. [CFTC product filings](https://www.cftc.gov/IndustryOversight/IndustryFilings/TradingOrganizationProducts?Status=Certified&Category=Event) include event contracts, including weather categories. These are precedents for listing well-defined weather questions, not evidence of a listing or liquidity for PMF's Rhine or California definitions.

The [CFTC's March 2026 advisory](https://www.cftc.gov/csl/26-08/download) reminds designated contract markets of product-submission, surveillance and manipulation duties. Its [prediction-markets notice](https://www.cftc.gov/LawRegulation/FederalRegister/proposedrules/2026-05105.html) asks about settlement disputes, clearing, price data, and contracts that may resemble insurance. This research is not a legal determination or exchange approval. A venue would need its own rule and legal review.

## Ladder size and liquidity

The archived design used 100 nested YES contracts for each peril. The current Rhine illustration lists ten variable-width duration thresholds with equal 10% payout steps; The current California illustration lists twenty midpoint structure-count thresholds with equal 5% payout steps; its 100-market definition is also archived. Fewer books may concentrate liquidity, but the Rhine payout has larger cliffs and its spacing is not tied to measured costs. These are design tradeoffs, not observed liquidity results. Rhine has six frozen seasons and California has 20 annual readings; multiple strikes do not create independent seasons.

For a proposed basket size, record the bid and ask and quantity available at every required leg at the same timestamp. Calculate the executable full-basket cost after fees, the spread, any unfilled legs, collateral and funding needs, and the age of each quote. A displayed midpoint or last trade is insufficient. Check nested-price consistency; a more severe threshold should not have a higher YES price than a less severe one at the same timestamp, after reasonable execution costs. Record any venue mechanism that could concentrate liquidity, such as a shared book or auction, as a new design for later review, without silently changing a listed contract definition.

## Open listing questions

| Issue | Evidence needed before adoption |
|---|---|
| Settlement | Official-source access at the proposed cutoff; archive identity; missing data, corrections, calculation authority and appeal rules; economic treatment of unresolved YES and NO. |
| Market participants | Identified possible buyers, sellers and market makers, plus their actual willingness and size. Public speculation is not a commitment. |
| Execution | Two-sided size, spread, fees, stale-quote rate and ability to assemble the basket during normal and extreme conditions. |
| Market integrity | Venue review of manipulation risks, surveillance, information asymmetry, collateral, eligibility and applicable law. |
| Usefulness | Same-horizon forecast comparison and observed insurance-workflow test, separate from historical payout replay. |

No venue has been contacted in this phase. There are no PMF order books or executable PMF prices to analyze.