Augur, a decentralized prediction market platform, has finally launched after being in development for over 2 years. It is now available for those owning Ethereum.
Augur, an open-source decentralized prediction-market platform, is finally live.
Augur Launches. https://t.co/FUUqJKzptL
— Augur (@AugurProject) July 10, 2018
Augur is a prediction market protocol. This decentralized platform is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Set in 2014 by Jack Peterson and Joey Krug, founders of the Forecast Foundation behind Augur, the platform allows users to trustlessly create market predictions on the outcome of any future event. For over two years, the platform was just a concept with no official product. Augur’s first contract was uploaded to the Ethereum network in April 2015, with the first beta version released in March 2016.
Prediction markets are speculative markets created for making predictions. They can be a useful tool to make decisions based on crowdsourced useful knowledge, which can be used for governance, corporate decision making, and investments. Considering that, Augur aims to be more than just a betting platform.
The project has been sparking immense interest from all corners of the crypto community, that’s why the Augur platform became one of the most anticipated releases in the industry. Augur is a unique innovation, as it mitigates regulatory risk, with all predictions facilitated by a decentralized smart contract system, removing a single point of failure or attack.
The main network of a long-awaited peer-to-peer prediction market platform was set to be launched on Monday, July 9th. According to the press release, the launch marks a major milestone in realizing the visions of both Augur and Ethereum.
“I have been excited about the possibility of prediction markets on Ethereum for a long time,” Vitalik Buterin, an advisor to the Forecast Foundation, said.
The Augur team hopes to gain a competitive edge by lowering fees and allowing users to create their own bets. Moreover, the platform creates a higher level of liquidity and volume, as well as diversifies topics not typically covered by traditional prediction markets.
Tom Kysar, head of operations at the Forecast Foundation, said:
“Today’s launch of Augur represents three years of relentless work to realize the goal of creating the first – and best – decentralized oracle and prediction-market platform. Augur’s success relies on the contributions and efforts of all Augur users.”
He added:
“Anyone can create a market. Augur is a truly global financial market. If you look at financial markets today, it’s hard for Apple stock to trade in Russia or China. Capital controls make that trade difficult.”
Most of cryptocurrency community are excited about the news. However, some sceptics believe that Augur will only worsen Ethereum’s scaling issues. Joey Krug, co-founder of Augur, commented on these worries:
“It’s pretty obvious Ethereum today doesn’t scale. We’re okay with that. It’s good to have slow growth and make sure there’s not security vulnerabilities. It’ll be a few years before Ethereum will be scalable.”
Speaking of utilizing another blockchain for the Augur platform, Krug said:
“We considered it. Right now at the moment, there aren’t any alternatives that are live and viable. But there are a few we are looking at pretty closely.”
Nonetheless, many hope the platform will be successful, and three-year wait has been well worth it.
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