Verifact Markets launched on Friday with a business model that inverts the usual premise of prediction markets: instead of letting users wager on future events, the startup asks them to trade on disputed facts from the past. Among the topics initially available, according to the company, were whether Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide and whether State Farm intentionally delayed claims tied to the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. The featured market during beta testing concerned the origins of Covid-19, and it remained open as of the reporting of the original article, with “true” priced at 76 cents and “false” at 32.
The company describes itself as a prediction market for disputed facts. It lists past events it considers contested and lets customers take a “true” or “false” position on whether those events occurred. Participants can submit evidence supporting their view, and Verifact plans to reward credible documentation that helps resolve a market. If the company decides the evidence is sufficient, it resolves the market; if not, it expires the market and pays users based on its calculation of the odds at that time.
Verifact Markets is funded and incubated by Positron Capital Management, the family office of tech investor Peter Wokwicz, who said he was excited because nobody had done this before and that the company would not shy away from controversial markets. Chief executive and cofounder Rodrigo Aquino said the markets themselves will not determine whether something is true or false, meaning a unanimous “true” vote would not make a claim so. Trading prices will be weighed alongside evidence and documentation submitted by users, and the company is planning a research system Aquino described as patent pending.
Asked how that system works, Aquino said the company is analyzing a multitude of data points multi-dimensionally, calling the process very mathematical, very quantitative and very secretive. When it was pointed out that credibly determining how the Covid pandemic started would be a major news story and a mystery that has eluded scientists for years, Aquino said it was doable. The company said it is in talks with market makers about providing liquidity, and it is currently being bootstrapped by Positron Capital Management.
Verifact is offering its markets only to people outside the United States for now as it seeks a viable legal path domestically, since it is not a licensed exchange in the US. Wokwicz said he purchased a regulated financial exchange in the last year and intends to roll Verifact into it when possible. Like Polymarket’s decentralized product, Verifact Markets operates on-chain, and participants can trade with stablecoins tied to the US dollar and other fiat currencies. Several lawsuits are ongoing in the US over whether prediction markets are financial instruments or gambling, though Verifact’s business model makes its place in that debate unclear.
The startup joins a wave of companies seeking to adjudicate disputed news and historical events. One recent entry was the short-lived, Peter Thiel - funded project Objection, later rebranded as The Primary, which aimed to determine whether specific media stories were accurate before pivoting to publishing news and a scoreboard for ranking journalists. Few details have emerged about how Verifact will ultimately decide what is true or false, and the company does not plan to charge fees at launch. Wokwicz said what he looks forward to most is the unique evidence people will dig up, adding that the company will bring out what is true and false. Prominent prediction market trader Caleb Davies said he would probably join just to keep making money off the 2020 election for the rest of his existence.
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