Two predictions, two stakes in the ground. What’s the common thread between them? If you say they’ve both proved false, you’re correct. Beyond that, we see a more worrisome similarity: they were both made by individuals whom society has labeled as experts.

Look around you — in the news, on Twitter, within blog posts — and you’ll see those coined experts making predictions every day. Yet, too often we take their credibility as a given, assuming the inevitability of their claims. They’re smarter than us, they have more of the facts — they’re an expert.

Wrong. Following the advice of the above predictions, one could have made some very regrettable decisions. If you had listened to Paul Krugman, you might have eased back on growing your e-commerce business during the hard times of the dot-com crash. And if you had listened to David Heinemeier Hansson, you might have passed on buying stock in a company now valued at nearly 2x its IPO. Clearly, predictions can influence human behavior — with professional, personal, and financial repercussions.

Now, I don’t mean to call out just these two voices. Both have also made correct predictions and accomplished a great deal in their fields, many times greater than the weight of any errant claim. Rather, I seek to highlight that predictions today are like faulty boomerangs. They’re thrown with as much force as one can muster, yet they never ultimately come full-circle. Our future selves aren’t held accountable for our past claims.

Enter Staked. Staked has a singular vision: to be the accountability layer for predictions. Just as Hacker News or Product Hunt surface the day’s most noteworthy stories and products, as voted on by their communities, Staked aims to do for predictions. Users can add others’ predictions, or submit their own. A wide group of predictions across a variety of topics is formed, which users can agree or disagree with and discuss. Then, days/months/years later, everyone who engaged with each prediction is brought back into the fold to determine its outcome. Credibility is earned, not given.

Experts aren’t about to stop making predictions, or us our own. We won’t stop responding to or rebutting these claims either. But when predictions can be tracked within a community from inception to close, something magical happens. Experts have a bit more skin in the game, and us incentive to voice our own side. We’re freed from the unknown value of any individual prediction, instead more aware from their sum. Society has greater transparency when everyone is held accountable for and reaps credibility from their claims, and the shift is upon us. We hope you join us on this quest.