Park The Bus 🚌

A peer-to-peer football prediction market on Solana — "What do you want to bet on?"

Park The Bus is a fully peer-to-peer prediction market. Bettors post a Request for Quote (RFQ) for any event — a match result, a scorer, or something custom like "Ronaldo to cry" — along with the odds and stake they want. Market makers compete to quote the best odds. The best quote wins, funds escrow in an on-chain program, and a transparent on-chain council settles the outcome. Reputation updates on-chain after every market.

Zero house edge. Zero AMM. Real humans quoting real odds.

Status: Hackathon MVP, live on Solana devnet. The parkthebus program is deployed and initialized, the web app runs against it with real on-chain RFQs in the feed, and the contract is covered by 26 LiteSVM tests (see Project status).

Why it exists

Existing platforms each leave the same gap:

	Park The Bus	Polymarket	Betfair	Sportybet
Custom events ("Ronaldo cries")	✅	❌	❌	❌
User-quoted odds	✅	❌ (AMM)	Partial	❌
P2P, no house	✅	Partial	✅	❌
Parlays	✅	❌	❌	✅
On-chain manipulation prevention	✅	Partial	❌	❌
Open market creation	✅	❌ (governance)	❌	❌
House commission	0%	~2% spread	5%	Baked into odds

The differentiator: custom-event RFQs + competitive P2P odds negotiation + on-chain manipulation prevention, fully on Solana.

Why Solana specifically: the core mechanic is competitive quoting — market makers post many quotes, most of which never match. That's only rational where posting a quote costs a fraction of a cent. A single market is ~15–20 transactions (1 RFQ + ~10 quotes + accept + council votes + settlement); on Solana that's ~$0.01, on an EVM L1 it's ~$32. This is exactly why Polymarket runs its order matching off-chain — and why Park The Bus can stay fully on-chain and verifiable.

How it works

  Bettor                 Market Makers              Council              Chain
    │                          │                       │                   │
    │  post_rfq (event, odds,  │                       │                   │
    │  stake, 0.01 SOL deposit)│                       │       RFQ PDA ────▶│
    │─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│
    │                          │  submit_quote (free)  │                   │
    │                          │──────────────────────────▶ Quote PDAs ───▶│
    │  accept_quote (best)     │                       │                   │
    │─────────────────────────────────────────────────▶ stake + MM        │
    │                          │                       │  collateral escrow │
    │                          │                       │   in Position PDA  │
    │                          │      match plays out   │                   │
    │                          │       sign_settlement  │                   │
    │                          │◀──────────────────────│ (threshold votes) │
    │                          │   execute_settlement   │                   │
    │◀─────────────── payout / refund per outcome ──────────────────────────│
    │                          │      reputation updated on-chain          │

Bettor posts an RFQ — picks a match (or types a custom event), sets stake, minimum odds, and expiry. A refundable 0.01 SOL spam-prevention deposit is locked. Custom events go to the council for approval; standard events are auto-approved.
Market makers quote — they browse the open RFQ feed and submit competing quotes. Quotes are free (no SOL locked) — only the winning quote ever pulls collateral.
Bettor accepts the best quote — this atomically escrows the bettor's stake and pulls the MM's collateral into a per-position PDA. Collateral = stake × (odds − 1), i.e. exactly the bettor's potential winnings.
The council settles — after the match, council members vote on the outcome (BettorWins / MmWins / Void). Once the vote threshold is met, anyone can call execute_settlement to release the escrow.
Reputation updates on-chain — win/loss, volume, and dispute history are recorded per wallet, readable by anyone.

Parlays are supported as all-or-nothing units: one MM quotes the whole parlay, each leg's result is recorded on-chain, and any losing leg settles the whole position to the MM.

An AI advisor (Google Gemini, server-side only) gives the bettor pricing guidance, gives the MM an EV/break-even read on their quote, and produces a plain-English summary of any position before signing.

Architecture

flowchart TD
    subgraph Browser["🖥️  Web app (React + Vite)"]
        UI["Pages & components"]
        Wallet["Phantom via wallet-adapter"]
        Anchor["@coral-xyz/anchor client"]
    end

    subgraph Proxy["🔌  Express proxy (server-side keys)"]
        AI["/api/ai/* — Gemini advisor"]
        Odds["/api/odds — The Odds API"]
        Fix["/api/fixtures, /api/results — api-football"]
    end

    subgraph Solana["⛓️  Solana devnet"]
        Program["parkthebus program\n(single program, 11 instructions)"]
        PDAs["PDAs: Config · MmVault · Rfq · Quote\nPosition · Settlement · Reputation"]
    end

    External["The Odds API · api-football · Gemini"]

    UI --> Wallet
    UI --> Anchor
    UI -->|/api| Proxy
    Anchor -->|signed txs| Program
    Program --- PDAs
    Proxy --> External

Frontend talks to the chain directly through the wallet + Anchor client. No backend sits between the user and their funds — signing happens in Phantom.
The Express proxy exists only to keep third-party API keys server-side (Gemini, odds, fixtures). It never touches funds. If the proxy is unavailable, the app degrades gracefully — fixtures fall back to a bundled World Cup schedule and the AI advisor falls back to templated guidance.
Escrow is native SOL held as lamports in system-owned PDAs (one per position). There is no SPL token account in the MVP; the USDC-on-mainnet switch is isolated to the escrow module.

The on-chain program

A single Anchor program, parkthebus, with rfq / settlement / reputation modules. (The 3-program CPI split is a documented post-MVP refactor — a working single-program loop demos better than a broken three-program one.)

Program ID: 6xzNc5rA9bMi8DzH1ZMp1CKrnC51XvurYTX5ygaGqm2i
11 instructions · 7 account types · native-SOL escrow

Instructions

Instruction	Caller	What it does
`initialize`	Authority	Registers the council + vote threshold and the RFQ counter
`deposit_collateral`	Market maker	Tops up the MM's collateral vault (quotes stay free)
`post_rfq`	Bettor	Creates the RFQ PDA and locks the 0.01 SOL deposit
`submit_quote`	Market maker	Creates a free competing Quote PDA (no SOL locked)
`accept_quote`	Bettor	Escrows stake + pulls MM collateral, opens a Position
`approve_market`	Council	Approves/rejects a custom-event RFQ awaiting review
`cancel_rfq`	Bettor	Cancels an unmatched RFQ (refunds deposit + rent)
`expire_rfq`	Anyone	Permissionless crank: cleans up an expired, unmatched RFQ
`sign_settlement`	Council	Votes on a matched position's outcome (threshold-gated)
`record_leg_result`	Council	Records one parlay leg's Won/Lost result
`execute_settlement`	Anyone	Releases escrow once the vote threshold is met

Accounts (PDAs)

Config (council + threshold + RFQ counter) · MmVault (MM collateral) · RfqAccount · QuoteAccount · PositionAccount (escrow + matched odds) · SettlementAccount (votes + outcome) · ReputationAccount (per-wallet history).

Collateral & payout

Bettor stakes X SOL at odds Y
  Payout if correct  = X × Y
  MM locks           = X × (Y − 1)   ← exactly the bettor's potential winnings

Example: 0.5 SOL at 2.4x → payout 1.2 SOL, MM locks 0.7 SOL

Settlement outcomes: BettorWins (bettor takes payout), MmWins (MM takes stake + own collateral back), Void (match postponed/abandoned → both parties refunded). Funds are conserved in all three paths — verified by the test suite.

Manipulation prevention

Enforced on-chain, not by policy:

Spam deposit — every RFQ locks 0.01 SOL, refunded on clean settlement. Kills junk markets.
Council auto-exclusion — a council member with an active position in a market cannot vote on its settlement.
No double-voting — a council pubkey can appear at most once in a settlement's votes; duplicate council keys are rejected at initialize.
Threshold settlement — funds release only at the configured vote threshold (size / 2 + 1). No single admin can settle alone. Devnet runs a 2-of-2 council, scalable to N-of-M via the on-chain Config (no code rewrite).
Kickoff / expiry guards — clock-checked on-chain: no accepting after expiry, no quoting after kickoff.
Fail-closed — if the council can't reach consensus, funds stay safely escrowed rather than being released incorrectly.

Tech stack

Layer	Choice
Smart contract	Anchor 1.0 (Agave 3.x, Rust) — single `parkthebus` program
Program tests	LiteSVM (Rust, `cargo test`) — 26 tests
Frontend	React 19 + Vite + TypeScript + Tailwind CSS
Wallet	`@solana/wallet-adapter` (Phantom)
Chain client	`@coral-xyz/anchor` + `@solana/web3.js`
Proxy server	Express (TypeScript)
AI	Google Gemini (`gemini-2.5-flash`), server-side only
Market data	The Odds API + api-football (with mock fallback)
Network	Solana devnet (native SOL; USDC-ready for mainnet)

Repository layout

ParkTheBus/
├── programs/parkthebus/      # Anchor program
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── lib.rs            # program entrypoints (11 instructions)
│   │   ├── instructions/     # one file per instruction
│   │   ├── state.rs          # 7 account types
│   │   ├── constants.rs · error.rs · util.rs
│   └── tests/                # LiteSVM Rust tests (rfq / settlement / parlay)
├── app/
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── pages/            # Home, NewRFQ, RFQDetail, Portfolio,
│   │   │                     #   MarketMaker, AdminSettle, Reputation
│   │   ├── components/       # RFQ card, quote list, parlay builder, AI advisor…
│   │   ├── hooks/            # useActions (txs), useData (account fetches)
│   │   ├── lib/              # anchor client, PDAs, api proxy client, formatters
│   │   ├── idl/              # program IDL + types
│   │   └── config.ts         # RPC, program id, council, constants
│   └── server/               # Express proxy (Gemini + odds + fixtures)
├── docs/PRD.md               # full product requirements (v2.0)
├── Anchor.toml · Cargo.toml
└── README.md

Getting started

Prerequisites

Node.js ≥ 18
Rust + the Solana/Anchor toolchain (only needed to build/deploy the program) — curl -fsSL https://www.solana.new/setup.sh | bash

1 · Run the web app

cd app
npm install
npm run dev          # http://localhost:5173

The app reads its config from app/src/config.ts (sensible defaults baked in). To point at a custom RPC or program, copy app/.env.local and edit:

VITE_SOLANA_RPC=https://devnet.helius-rpc.com/?api-key=YOUR_KEY
VITE_PROGRAM_ID=6xzNc5rA9bMi8DzH1ZMp1CKrnC51XvurYTX5ygaGqm2i
VITE_API_BASE=/api

A free dedicated devnet RPC (Helius/QuickNode/Alchemy) is recommended — the public endpoint rate-limits getProgramAccounts.

2 · Run the proxy server (optional)

The app works without it (bundled fixtures + templated AI), but the proxy lights up live odds, fixtures, and the Gemini advisor.

cd app/server
npm install
cp .env.example .env   # fill in keys (all optional)
npm run dev            # http://localhost:8787, vite proxies /api → here

3 · Build, test & deploy the program

anchor build
cargo test                                    # 26 LiteSVM tests
anchor deploy --provider.cluster devnet       # needs a funded deploy wallet

After deploying, run initialize with the council pubkeys + threshold, then seed a few demo RFQs.

Environment variables

Frontend (app/.env.local, all optional — defaults in config.ts): VITE_SOLANA_RPC, VITE_PROGRAM_ID, VITE_API_BASE.

Server (app/server/.env, all optional — graceful fallback without them):

Var	Purpose	Free tier
`GEMINI_API_KEY`	AI advisor / MM assistant / contract summary	aistudio.google.com/apikey
`ODDS_API_KEY`	Live implied odds	the-odds-api.com — 500 req/mo
`FOOTBALL_API_KEY`	Fixtures & results	api-football.com — 100 req/day
`PORT`	Proxy port (default 8787)	—

API keys are only ever used server-side and never reach the browser.

Project status

Park The Bus is a hackathon MVP. Honest snapshot:

✅ On-chain program — deployed to devnet under the program ID above and initialized with the council Config. 11 instructions, 7 account types, audited across three review passes, 26 LiteSVM tests passing. Funds proven conserved across all settlement outcomes; no path lets a single party force a payout.
✅ Web app — all 7 pages and the full RFQ → quote → accept → settle flow are built; the feed reads live RFQ accounts straight from the chain, and the AI advisor is wired end-to-end (frontend → proxy → Gemini) with mock fallback.
✅ Live demo data — the devnet feed is seeded with open RFQs (standard, custom, and a parlay) so the market isn't empty.

Remaining for production: mainnet deployment behind a security audit, USDC settlement, and scaling the council (see Roadmap).

Roadmap

Now — FIFA World Cup 2026, Solana devnet, native SOL.
Mainnet — security audit, USDC settlement (architecture already isolated).
Any sport — NBA, cricket, F1.
Any event — elections, awards, crypto prices.
Settlement layer as public infrastructure — other apps read the reputation/settlement layer via CPI.
DAO governance — community-owned council, appeal layer, $PTB.

The real product is the settlement layer. Betting is just the first use case.

Disclaimer

This is experimental, unaudited-for-production software built for a hackathon and running on devnet with test SOL. Do not use with real funds. Prediction markets and betting may be regulated in your jurisdiction — this project is for educational and demonstration purposes only.

See docs/PRD.md for the full product specification.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 12 Commits
app		app
docs		docs
migrations		migrations
programs/parkthebus		programs/parkthebus
.gitignore		.gitignore
.prettierignore		.prettierignore
Anchor.toml		Anchor.toml
Cargo.lock		Cargo.lock
Cargo.toml		Cargo.toml
README.md		README.md
package.json		package.json
rust-toolchain.toml		rust-toolchain.toml
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json

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Park The Bus 🚌

Table of contents

Why it exists

How it works

Architecture

The on-chain program

Instructions

Accounts (PDAs)

Collateral & payout

Manipulation prevention

Tech stack

Repository layout

Getting started

Prerequisites

1 · Run the web app

2 · Run the proxy server (optional)

3 · Build, test & deploy the program

Environment variables

Project status

Roadmap

Disclaimer

About

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Repository files navigation

Park The Bus 🚌

Table of contents

Why it exists

How it works

Architecture

The on-chain program

Instructions

Accounts (PDAs)

Collateral & payout

Manipulation prevention

Tech stack

Repository layout

Getting started

Prerequisites

1 · Run the web app

2 · Run the proxy server (optional)

3 · Build, test & deploy the program

Environment variables

Project status

Roadmap

Disclaimer

About

Resources

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