Hi,
Eighteen months ago, Leon and I met arguing about Polymarket on Reddit. We were both fascinated by prediction markets and frustrated by the same thing: the binary structure throws away most of what people actually know. Someone who thinks BTC will be at $82,000 and someone who thinks it will be at $95,000 look identical in a market with a $80,000 threshold. Both are just “YES.”
We wanted to know if there was a way to let people express the number, not just the side of the threshold. To reward being closer over being right. To turn the wait between guess and outcome from dead time into the most interesting part of the round.
After 18 months of building, 2 pivots, four hackathon wins, two audits, and a 122,000-person waitlist, Trepa goes live tomorrow.
This post is to tell you exactly what to expect and how to make the most of the next two weeks.
When and how to play
Tomorrow, May 20, at 11:00 UTC, Trepa opens for early access.
For the next two weeks, Trepa runs as a live event: 60 rounds per day, all packed into a single hour from 11:00 UTC to 12:00 UTC. Hard start, hard stop. When you open the app outside that window, you’ll see a countdown to the next session.
We’re concentrating early access into one hour for a specific reason. The watch phase, where you see your potential payout climb or collapse in real time as the price moves, only works when rounds are full. Spreading the first cohort across 24 hours would produce empty rooms. One hour means packed rounds, the watch phase as it’s meant to be experienced, and a real shared moment every day.
Set a reminder by signing up to Trepa Early Access Launch on Luma. You will get a calendar invite.
Invite codes
Invite codes start going out within the next few hours, sent to the email address you used to sign up for the waitlist. There are 2 ways to get one:
Waitlist referral ranking. The top of the waitlist by referral count receives codes first. If you’ve been sharing Trepa with friends, your rank is the result of that work. Waitlist: trepa.app/waitlist
Community drops. We’re seeding codes throughout the Trepa Discord and on X.
If you don’t have a code yet, you can still climb. Referral counts continue to update right up to and through the launch window. Every signup you bring in pushes you higher on the waitlist.
The Launch Forecaster Cup: $5,000 USDC across five categories
To make the next two weeks count, we’re running a contest from launch through the end of the early access period.
The contest runs from the first round on May 20 through the final round on Day 14 (June 1) at 12:00 UTC. The total prize pool is $5,000 USDC, paid directly to winners’ Trepa wallets within 30 days of the contest closing.
Category 1: Sharpest Forecaster - $2,000 USDC
The user with the highest all-time CAR (geometric mean of Precision Scores) at the end of the 2-week period wins. Minimum 50 qualifying rounds. This is the headline skill prize, awarded to whoever proves most consistently accurate over the full window. Ties are broken by the user’s total round-participation count during early access.
Category 2: Longest Streak - $1,000 USDC
The user with the longest single uninterrupted streak of accumulator-qualifying rounds wins. A qualifying round is any round with Precision Score ≥ 777. A streak ends when (a) the user plays a round and scores below 777, or (b) the user does not play any round for a 24-hour calendar period. Each user’s longest single streak across the 14 days is their score. Ties are broken by the user’s overall CAR across all rounds during early access.
Category 3: Crowd Beater - $750 USDC
The user with the highest crowd-beat rate wins. A user beats the crowd on a round if their absolute error is strictly less than the crowd consensus’s absolute error (ties do not count as beats). Minimum 30 paid rounds during early access to qualify. Winner is the user with the highest crowd-beat rate (crowd beats divided by paid rounds played). Ties on rate are broken by the absolute number of crowd beats.
Category 4: Single Round Hero - $500 USDC
The user whose single prediction came closest to the actual outcome across any individual round during the 2 weeks wins, measured by absolute error. Minimum 5 paid rounds played during early access to qualify. Tiebreaker is the user’s next-best single-round absolute error, then third-best, and so on. If users remain tied after all qualifying rounds are exhausted, the tiebreaker is the earlier waitlist signup timestamp.
Category 5: The Creator - $750 USDC across 5 winners ($150 each)
The five best user-generated clips, threads, or posts about Trepa rounds, judged by the Trepa team based on creativity and storytelling. To submit, post on X (tagging @trepa_io) and share in our Discord #community-content channel. Content must be original and meaningfully feature your own Trepa gameplay, round outcomes, or experience. AI-generated content is permitted only if substantially edited and curated by the user. Each user can win at most one The Creator prize. Plagiarism, copied content, or engagement manipulation disqualifies all entries from that user. Submission deadline: June 2, 2026 (Day 14 of early access) at 23:59 UTC.
Eligibility and rules (applies to all categories)
A user may win in multiple categories; the contest does not restrict winners to one prize each. Trepa core team members are not eligible. Winners announced within 7 days of the early access period ending. Prizes paid directly to winners’ Trepa wallets in USDC. Winners are responsible for any tax obligations arising from their prize.
Trepa reserves the right to disqualify any user from any category for evidence of cheating, exploitation of bugs, or behavior that violates the spirit of the contest. Trepa reserves the right to modify these rules during the contest period in response to unforeseen circumstances; material rule changes will be announced to all participants. Judging decisions by the Trepa team are final and not subject to appeal.
XP boost during early access
Every prediction you make during early access earns 2x XP. This boost is only available during the 2-week early access period. The XP you earn now will shape your starting position when general access opens and may affect your eligibility for future programs.
What to do today and tomorrow
Check your email for the invite code. Codes are going out today. If yours doesn’t arrive by tomorrow morning, check your spam folder and message us on Discord.
RSVP on Luma so you don’t forget: Trepa Early Access Launch on Luma. Signing up adds a calendar invite to your inbox. The session is one hour. If you miss it, you’ll wait 23 hours for the next one. Note: signing up for the Luma event does not guarantee an invite code.
Join the Telegram announcement channel for real-time notifications when pools go live and for major product announcements: https://t.me/trepa_announcements
Join the Discord community to find other forecasters, share clips, and compete for the Launch Forecaster Cup: https://discord.gg/trepa
One more thing
We’ve spent 18 months thinking about how to reward precision instead of direction, how to make the wait between guess and outcome the most engaging part of the round, and how to build a prediction protocol that gives people credit for the actual numbers they have in their heads.
Tomorrow at 11:00 UTC, we find out if we got it right.
If you’re with us for the next two weeks, thank you. The 122,000 of you on this list are the reason this product exists in the form it does.
See you at 11:00 UTC.
Jong & Leon & Trepa team
Tomorrow marks a big day for prediction markets 🔥