Hunch

Inspiration

Have a hunch? Trade it.

Every community makes predictions about games, competitions, milestones, and shared interests. But creating a prediction market usually requires access to an established platform or the technical expertise to build one.

Memecoins helped democratize token creation by allowing almost anyone to launch their own coin. We wanted to bring that same accessibility to prediction markets. With Hunch, anyone can turn a question into a market and invite their community to participate.

What it does

Hunch lets people create prediction markets, stake on outcomes, and claim payouts when those outcomes are resolved.

Creators bring the questions and audiences. Hunch provides the infrastructure for market creation, staking, settlement, and payouts.

Verified identities help participants recognize established creators, while unverified creators can still launch markets. Verification is a signal of identity, not a guarantee of accuracy or safety. Participants must consider the creator, settlement rules, and risks before staking.

How we built it

We built Hunch with a React frontend, a TypeScript SDK, a resolver backend, and an Anchor smart contract on Solana.

The SDK, or software development kit, gives developers reusable tools for creating markets and interacting with the contract. This makes Hunch a foundation other applications can build on, as well as a platform people can use directly.

Solana handles the core market mechanics:

Market state: Records the market’s outcomes, deadline, resolver, and stake pools.
Escrow: Holds stakes in program-controlled token vaults.
Resolution: Restricts outcome submission to the market’s authorized resolver.
Payouts: Calculates and distributes winning claims according to the contract’s rules.

Hunch uses pooled payouts. Winners receive a proportional share of the total market pool:

$$ \text{payout} = \left\lfloor \frac{\text{individual winning stake}} {\text{total winning stake}} \times \text{total market pool} \right\rfloor $$

Solana’s low transaction costs make small stakes and frequent participation practical. Its fast execution supports markets around rapidly unfolding events, while its shared ledger provides an inspectable record of stakes, outcomes, and claims.

Challenges we faced

Our biggest challenge was connecting real-world outcomes to on-chain settlement. A blockchain can enforce payout rules, but it cannot independently determine whether an external event happened. We built an authorized resolver layer to bridge that gap.

Another challenge was making permissionless market creation understandable and responsible. Allowing anyone to create a market also allows poorly defined questions and unreliable sources. Clear settlement rules and visible creator identities are essential, even when the funds are secured by a contract.

We also had to handle the details of pooled settlement: proportional payouts, integer rounding, repeated claims, and transaction failures. These details matter because small mistakes can affect participants’ funds.

What we learned

We learned that decentralizing settlement does not automatically decentralize truth.

Solana can secure escrow, record participation, and enforce claims. The reliability of an outcome still depends on the evidence and resolver behind it. A strong prediction market needs both sound contract logic and clear accountability.

We also learned why Solana fits this idea: when transactions are inexpensive, markets can support smaller communities and smaller stakes. Participation becomes practical beyond a handful of large, widely followed events.

What we’re proud of

We designed Hunch around blockchain-native market mechanics. Solana is responsible for custody, market state, and settlement, rather than simply transferring payments.

We’re also proud of building a reusable SDK alongside the application. Our goal is to let developers bring prediction markets into new communities without rebuilding the underlying infrastructure.