The prediction market Augur has entered beta…
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Please try and tell us what you think.
I personally haven’t had any time to look into their system, but others here seem to have done so. All I really know is that @tomjoad posted about them being interested in using NuBits. I posted my thoughts on that below in the state of NuBits thread…
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Prediction markets are a fairly established concept and the mechanics behind it won’t be controversial. The big test for Augur is whether it can perform in a decentralized way, and just as importantly whether it can perform in an economical way (in terms of financial cost to participate, and blockchain size).
I spoke with an Augur team member about a month ago and they were still interested in NuBits. Sidechains need to happen first though, and those likely won’t be completed for some time in the Bitcoin community.
Are they using PoS?
Nevermind, I believe I read they are using Ethereum, which is using PoW for now. I fear for the future of Ethereum with that ever increasing blockchain size. Maybe they would have been better off setting Augur up on Peershares?
prediction market …Is it gambling?
Yes. It is an exchange that allows you to trade the likelihood of a specific event occurring. It can be used for entertainment, but its true value is unlocked as a predictive tool. Many studies have shown that the “wisdom of the crowd” is more accurate than any individual person’s opinion.
For example, in the US presidential race Hillary Clinton is trading at $0.90 and the rest of the field is at $0.10. This is the market saying that Hillary Clinton will likely win the Democratic Party nomination, and that she will easily win the general election in November 2016. Prediction market outcomes are usually priced as a portion of $1.00. Someone can “buy” Hillary Clinton winning for $0.90 to win $1.00, or “buy” the field for $0.10 to win $1.00. The field is more lucrative, but less likely to occur.
A website called ForceRank is pioneering a fantasy-style stock picking game that will produce quantitative data it can sell to hedge funds. I expect that regulatory bodies will eventually shut it down, because a similar manual style of game a few years ago produced incredible profits for the hedge fund that ran it. If Augur works as intended, it could quickly expand into a source of market knowledge that would impact financial exchanges across the globe.
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Pretty much. I bet $2,000 on Intrade one time that Mitt Romney was going to lose the election and won a bunch of money. Intrade was a centralized company though.
It sounds interesting. This platform can collect the thought of the public. which is very meaningful in big data era. Is there a Augur coin or based on etheruem?
And if this platform gets popular, what’s the transaction frequency? You know what I mean, the ever increasing blockchain size of Etheruem cannot handle a great amount of micropayment.
It’s based on Ethereum, but there is an Augur coin called “REP”. http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/augur/
My understanding is that anyone who holds REP must validate/confirm certain real-world events, or risk losing a portion of their REP over time. Anyone who holds REP is entitled to a portion of the profits of the market. It could be very lucrative if it works.
The downside is only one exchange trades REP (Gatecoin) and it’s based on “IOUs”. There isn’t a place to trade native REP yet, but the price on Gatecoin implies that Augur could already be worth over $100M. Imagine if every trade on a working Augur platform used NuBits - a very real possibility in the future based on the public statements of their developers.
So, our B&C exchange cannot trade REP.
It can, and probably should, once Augur is out of beta phase.
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Bitshares developer Nathan Hourt gives Amanda a tutorial for creating a prediction market on the Bitshares blockchain