Pact
Vol. I · Issue 01·Commitment Markets

Make a
pact.Settled by
your body.

The pitch

Stake real money on a habit you’ve been flaking on. Your Whoop or Oura decides whether you kept it. If you didn’t, your stake goes to a charity you’d hate to fund.

Beeminder, but biometric. Prediction markets, but on yourself. A commitment device that can’t be argued with.

Mechanism

Three moves. One loop.

01Pledge
Declare the habit.

Something specific, time-bounded, and measurable by a wearable. Sleep before midnight. Three workouts this week. 10,000 steps by 8pm.

Measurable / one signal
02Stake
Put money on it.

Pick an amount that would sting. Pick a forfeit charity you'd genuinely hate to fund. The stake is held in escrow until the pledge resolves.

Loss aversion / irrevocable
03Settle
Your body decides.

Whoop or Oura writes the verdict. No self-report. No "I tried." No gaming. Honor it — your stake is returned. Flake — the charity wins.

Oracle read / not bargained

The oracle

The oracle is
your body.

A wearable is an always-on witness. It doesn’t flatter you, it doesn’t take sides, and it doesn’t miss the day you went to bed at 1:47. We read the API. The API reads you.

Live trace · Whoop · subject=self
What we read
  • Sleep windowsonset, duration, midpoint
  • Workout countper week, per activity
  • Zone 2 minutesHR-gated
  • Recovery scoremorning read
  • Resting HRrolling baseline
  • Step countdaily rollup
What we don't
  • ×Self-reportyou saying so
  • ×Honor systemthe checkbox
  • ×Screenshotscrops, filters, vibes
  • ×Friends vouchingaccountability buddies
  • ×Journalsretro reasoning

Thesis

Why this. Why now.

Loss aversion is the strongest behavioral lever we have.

— Kahneman, 1979 · paraphrased
01 · The oracle problem

Every habit app fails at the same place — self-report. You mark the checkbox. You reward yourself. You are also the judge. Wearables fix that. Whoop and Oura are always-on, independent oracles for the body. They can be read, not bargained with.

02 · Money that moves

Beeminder, StickK, Forfeit, all rhyme on the same insight: loss aversion moves people. But they settle on honor. Pact settles on data. The stake is real. The verdict is outsourced. The mechanism is closed.

03 · Charity as the worst case

Your forfeit goes to a cause you'd rather not fund. Not to the house, not to an opponent, not to a pool of strangers. The worst case is morally tolerable — someone, somewhere, wins. You just won't like who.

04 · Play money first, real money next

The first cohort stakes in points. The second stakes in dollars through a Gibraltar-licensed entity. The first is a trust-building exercise. The second is the business.

Ledger

The record.

Every pledge is written. Every verdict is public. What the body says, the ledger keeps. Real names redacted until the cohort opens.

ID
Pledge
Status
KP-0041
Sleep before midnight, 30 nights
S.K. · Bangalore
Open21/30
KP-0040
Three 45-min workouts / wk, 8 weeks
M.R. · Brooklyn
Open19/24
KP-0039
Zone 2 cardio 4x / wk, 12 weeks
J.T. · Singapore
Open34/48
KP-0038
Recovery ≥ 60% every Monday, 10 wks
A.V. · Lisbon
Kept10/10
KP-0037
10,000 steps by 8pm, 30 days
D.P. · Austin
Flaked17/30
KP-0036
Sleep 7h+ every weeknight, 60 days
R.N. · Mumbai
Open38/60
Live pre-cohort · specimen ledger · not yet settling real dollars
Pledges staked
0
Cohort opens May 2026
Dollars in escrow
$0.00
Play money until Q4
Waitlist
Updates live

Differences

Pact vs. the honor system.

AxisPactBeeminderStickKForfeit
Who decidesWearable APIYouFriend / refereeYou
Can be gamedNoYesYesYes
SignalBiometricSelf-reportSelf-reportSelf-report
ForfeitAnti-charityPledge back to BeemAnti-charity (opt.)Anti-charity
Real moneyQ4 2026 · GibraltarYesYesYes
Founder’s note
P.
Bangalore
04 · 2026

I built Pact because I kept flaking on sleep. I’d promise myself I’d be in bed by midnight, wake up at 1:47, lie about it in my own journal, and feel fine the next morning. Then the Whoop started saying otherwise. I stopped being able to argue.

Pact is what happens when you take that little daily argument you lose with yourself and outsource the scorekeeper to something that can’t be sweet-talked. The body keeps the books. The pact holds, or it doesn’t.

Param VaswaniFounder · Pact

FAQ

Asked & answered.

The questions that come up in every demo, answered once so we can focus the rest of the conversation on the habit you want to stake on.

01

What is Pact?

Pact is a commitment market settled by your wearable. You stake real money on a habit, and your Whoop or Oura decides whether you held it. If you didn’t, your stake goes to a charity you’d hate to fund.

02

How is Pact different from Beeminder or StickK?

Beeminder and StickK both rely on self-report — you mark whether you held the habit. Pact is different because the verdict is written by a wearable API, which cannot be gamed. The oracle is the body, not the user.

03

Who settles the bet?

Your wearable. Pact reads directly from the Whoop or Oura API — sleep windows, workout counts, recovery scores, step counts — to determine whether the pledge was honored. There is no self-report.

04

What happens to the money if I flake?

It goes to a charity you chose precisely because you’d hate to fund them. Not to the house, not to an opponent, not to strangers. The worst case is morally tolerable — someone, somewhere, wins. You just won’t like who.

05

Is Pact real money?

The first cohort (May 2026) stakes in play money — points, not dollars. The second cohort stakes in real dollars through a Gibraltar-licensed entity, rolling out in Q4 2026. Play money is trust-building. Real money is the business.

06

Who built Pact?

Param Vaswani, a solo founder based in Bangalore. Param argues that every habit app fails at the same place — self-report. Wearables are the fix, because they can be read but not bargained with.

Closed Cohort · 50 slots · May 2026

If you’ve flaked on
the same thing three times,
Pact is for you.

Tell us what you’d stake on. We open invites in May to the people whose habits map cleanest onto a wearable signal.

Cohort 1
50
Play money · May
Cohort 2
Q4
Real money · Gibraltar

No newsletter. No spam. One email when invites open.