FactCheck

FactCheck.fun is a decentralized fact-checking marketplace that applies prediction market mechanics to the problem of online misinformation. Built on Base — Coinbase's Ethereum layer-2 network — the platform allows anyone to create or trade markets on whether a specific public claim is true or false. Participants stake USDC on outcomes, with an AI panel serving as the resolution arbiter. The project is operated by Loch, Inc. and operates under the motto Nullius in Verba, meaning "take nobody's word for it."

Note on chain: FactCheck.fun runs on Base (an Ethereum L2), not on Solana. As of mid-2026, no Solana programs or Solana-specific integrations are documented for this project.

The Core Thesis

Centralized fact-checking organizations are slow, methodologically opaque, and frequently accused of political bias. FactCheck.fun's thesis is that open, liquid markets surface truth more reliably than editorial committees: participants with real money at stake are incentivized to research claims carefully, and market prices aggregate dispersed knowledge in real time. The platform's tagline — "fight fake news with free markets" — frames this as an economic rather than editorial solution to disinformation.

The approach borrows from the broader prediction market movement, which demonstrated during the 2024 US presidential election that crowd-sourced financial signals can surface accurate information faster than traditional media. FactCheck.fun narrows that model to a specific use case: adjudicating the binary question of whether a given claim is true or false.

Two Trading Engines

The platform runs two distinct market types, each suited to a different class of question.

Dynamic Pari-Mutuel (DPM) is used for FactCheck-style markets — assertions about the veracity of a specific statement. In a DPM market, participants contribute to a shared pool by staking on Yes or No. There are no early exits and no shorting. Odds are calculated dynamically as the Yes pool divided by the total pool, adjusting continuously as new capital flows in. Because DPM markets always match a stake immediately against the pool rather than requiring a counterparty, they lower the barrier to participation. An AI panel resolves outcomes; decisions are final unless the market is cloned to initiate a dispute. A flat 2.5% fee is charged on all DPM buys.

Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) is used for information markets where outcomes are determined by external data sources — prices, election results, sporting events, or other verifiable facts. Each CLOB market issues one type of binary token, priced between 0 and 1 USDC, representing the probability the outcome is true. Order matching uses first-price FIFO priority, and full collateralization is required on match, eliminating counterparty credit risk. On FactCheck-style CLOB markets, AI-assisted resolution is triggered automatically when the AI confidence level reaches or exceeds 90%, with the final settlement price set at the volume-weighted average price (VWAP). CLOB maker orders carry a 0% fee; taker orders are charged 0.5%.

Fee Distribution and Incentives

The DPM fee structure is designed to reward participants who drive market creation and user growth. Of the 2.5% collected on each DPM buy:

• 45% is distributed to the referring user who brought the participant to the platform
• 5% goes to the user who originally created the market
• 50% flows to the protocol treasury

The referral share is large by DeFi standards and is explicitly intended to drive organic, user-led distribution. By making early adopters financially invested in recruiting others, the platform attempts to bootstrap liquidity without requiring a large initial treasury allocation.

Token and Settlement Currency

No native FactCheck token exists. All trading and settlement is denominated in USDC, deposited and withdrawn via Base network addresses (standard 0x format). Gas costs for on-platform transactions are sponsored by FactCheck, removing the need for participants to hold ETH independently.

Access and Onboarding

FactCheck.fun supports both Web3 wallet connections and Web2-style authentication through X (formerly Twitter) accounts or email. This design reduces friction for users unfamiliar with self-custody wallets. The platform is accessible via a standard browser interface at factcheck.fun, without requiring any local software installation.

Operator and Ecosystem Background

FactCheck.fun is built and operated by Loch, Inc., which hosts media assets under the loch.one domain. The project has been associated with Alliance DAO, a Web3 accelerator with a track record of backing early-stage consumer crypto projects. Detailed information about the founding team is not publicly disclosed.

Context Within the Information-Market Category

FactCheck.fun occupies a specific niche within the broader landscape of market-based approaches to misinformation. It is distinct from general-purpose prediction markets like Polymarket — which primarily forecast future events — in that it focuses specifically on retroactive claims about facts that are already, in principle, knowable. It also differs from community-driven annotation systems (such as X's Community Notes) by making correctness financially consequential rather than purely reputational.

The use of AI as the resolution arbiter is both the platform's key efficiency advantage and its central trust assumption. Unlike human juries or community votes, AI resolution can be fast and low-cost, but it delegates a significant amount of epistemic authority to the underlying model and its confidence thresholds. The 90% confidence trigger for automatic CLOB resolution is a specific design choice that trades resolution speed for resolution certainty.

Whether market-based fact-checking can scale to cover the volume and variety of claims circulating across social media remains an open question. FactCheck.fun's dual-engine architecture — DPM for accessibility, CLOB for capital efficiency — suggests a team thinking carefully about serving both casual participants and more sophisticated traders within the same platform.