  Open online crowd-prediction platforms are increasingly used to forecast
trends and complex events. Despite the large body of research on
crowd-prediction and forecasting tournaments, online crowd-prediction platforms
have never been directly compared to other forecasting methods. In this
analysis, exchange rate crowd-predictions made on Metaculus are compared to
predictions made by the random-walk, a statistical model considered extremely
hard-to-beat. The random-walk provides less erroneous forecasts, but the
crowd-prediction does very well. By using the random-walk as a benchmark, this
analysis provides a rare glimpse into the forecasting skill displayed on open
online crowd-prediction platforms.
