Would you wager on whether the Apollo 11 moon landing was a hoax? Verifact Markets, a new startup, is betting that you will. This prediction market for disputed facts offers traders the opportunity to bet on whether certain events in history really happened. From the origins of the coronavirus to the death of Jeffrey Epstein, the markets are ripe for speculation.

The platform’s founder, Peter Wokwicz, envisions Verifact Markets as a way to settle debates over controversial issues. 'I’m excited, because nobody’s done this before,' he says. But how credible can a market be when its subject is already in the past? The answer lies in the evidence: users can submit proof, and the company will determine the outcome based on a combination of trading prices and submitted documentation.

Verifact Markets is currently in talks with market makers to provide liquidity, but it remains to be seen how this will work in practice. The project is currently being bootstrapped by Wokwicz’s family office, Positron Capital Management, and is not licensed in the United States. Wokwicz hopes to integrate it into a regulated financial exchange in the future.

The concept of a prediction market for past events raises interesting questions about the intersection of technology, history and human curiosity. Could AI ever truly resolve the mysteries of the past? Only time will tell, but Verifact Markets is certainly trying to find out.