A guest essay published by TechFlowPost argues that hedging should not be treated as the simple purchase of an available contract. Prathik Desai says a hedge only works when it is built around an already identified exposure, with the amount, tenor and risk factor aligned to the company’s balance-sheet problem. In that framework, a listed event contract may help in some cases, but a contract-first approach often leaves buyers with basis risk rather than protection. The piece draws a sharp line between how traders use the word “hedge” and how corporate finance uses it. A trader can call almost any offsetting position a hedge. A company, by contrast, has to show what exposure is being offset, by how much, for how long, and under what accounting, credit, collateral and documentation setup. The article points to IFRS 9 and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s approach to physical hedging as examples of that stricter standard. It also walks through where event contracts may matter, where they may not, and why packaging often determines whether demand appears at all. Examples in the essay include Kalshi, Marex, CME, WeatherBill, The Climate Corporation and FanDuel, alongside references to BIS data, academic work on 41.60 million Kalshi trades, and recent U.S. regulatory debates over prediction markets.