Hey Product Hunt!

This is my second launch here, and I’m thrilled to introduce Mettle Market to the community.

It’s pretty straightforward - a prediction market for startups, founders, and creators. Anyone can trade on the outcomes of venture events — like whether a company will get acquired, hit a milestone, or raise a round — using real money.

💡 Why I Built This

I originally got this idea because I wanted to invest in YC startups, but couldn’t find a simple or accessible way to do it — and prediction markets weren’t really covering this space.

So I set out to build something that lets anyone speculate on early-stage ventures, mimicking the high-risk, high-reward dynamics of venture capital — but without the long lock-up periods or high barriers to entry.

That also means you can bet against startups, and given how many fail, this could offer a more modest but consistent return.

⚙️ On the Tech Stack

Mettle Market is built on the Polygon blockchain and uses USDC stablecoin for transactions. That said, this isn’t meant to be a “crypto project” in the traditional sense.

I chose blockchain because it gave me faster development, built-in financial security, and a trust-minimized settlement layer. Still, I’ve worked hard to ensure the user experience is intuitive, even for people who’ve never touched Web3.

🔍 On Market Resolution

Our resolution process is a hybrid between Polymarket and Kalshi:

Like Polymarket, users can propose outcomes to resolve a market.

If no one disputes it within 24 hours, the proposal is automatically accepted.
If it is disputed, the Mettle Market team investigates and renders a final decision.
If we can’t reach a fair conclusion, the market is voided and all participants receive their principal back.

📘 You can read the full process here:

Resolution Process Docs

🛡️ On Safety

I know real money is involved — so trust and reliability are critical.

I’ve stress-tested Mettle Market extensively to ensure transactions are safe and robust. That said, I haven’t seen what happens under high load (hundreds or thousands of simultaneous users), but I will scale accordingly if we reach that point.

If a transaction ever seems to fail or disappear, don’t worry — your money isn’t lost. As long as it hit the contract, I’ll be able to track it down and return it.

🔧 For any bugs or urgent issues, feel free to reach me directly:

gavin@mettle-market.com

📜 Terms of Service

Like Polymarket, Mettle Market is not available in the U.S. and other restricted countries.

If you’re using a VPN to bypass this, I really can't do anything to stop you. But for the record, I’m explicitly discouraging you from doing so. It violates our terms of service.

⏳ Final Note

If I don’t reply to your comments right away — sorry in advance! Due to the nature of my day job, I won’t be able to respond until early evening EST, but I promise I’ll try my best to get back to everyone.

Thanks for checking out Mettle Market — excited to hear what you think!