Augur (REP) is a decentralized prediction market platform built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. The platform’s main goal is to forecast the outcome of any event based on the so-called “wisdom of the crowd” method.
Thanks to its blockchain technology, the platform provides greater accessibility and better accuracy than most other markets. Information is gathered from the crowd and then processed in order to deem the most realistic and most probable outcome.
Its principle is straightforward: the less likely an event is to occur, the bigger the reward you can earn by predicting its success. While correct predictions are rewarded by the network, incorrect ones are penalized and that, in turn, ensures the truthfulness of everyone on the platform.
Since it’s a decentralized platform, it cannot be controlled or banned by institutions or even governments that associate these types of predictions with other generally illegal activities, such as gambling.
Augur uses a consensus decision-making process that is the one that is featured now by Ethereum. At the moment it includes PoW and PoS but in the future it can be just PoS.
Understanding Augur
In simple terms, this decentralized, open source platform allows you to make predictions on virtually anything. The other users on the network are able to buy or sell shares in that specific prediction, based on their subjective and personal opinion.
Users then report on the outcomes, and this earns them reputation. In simple terms, the amount of reputation a user has is in direct accordance with the accuracy of his or her outcome reports.
There are two main actions associated with Augur: creating markets and trading event shares.
To create a market, you must set the taker and maker fees. The first must be between 1.0% and 12.5%, while the latter has to always be under the half of the first. It’s also possible that sometime in the near future, the maker and taker fees will be removed in favor of a creator fee, which is extracted from the rewards of the traders that hold the winning positions.
As far as the trading of event shares goes, you can buy and trade shares. These shares represent the odds that the event will happen. As a trader, you can earn money by correctly predicting events and by holding shares when the market closes. Another efficient way of earning money is by buying positions at a low cost and selling them higher as the tide changes.
Reputation Tokens (REP)
Even if the Reputation token is technically at the heart of Augur, anyone can use Augur without ever needing and owning REP. For example, anyone can make bets on the platform by using Ether, or any other Ethereum-based currency.
Reputation tokens are basically tradable assets limited to a fixed number of 11.000.000. The demand for the token exists because its ownership is the only way of getting nearly half of the fees on the Augur platform.
You are required to report on all markets assigned to you before the end of a 30-day period. Failing to report on some markets assigned before the 30 days end usually results in fines that can add to as much as 20% of your reputation.
This process is followed by a 29-day reveal period in which you will have to log in at least once. Failing to do so will result in your reputation being moved to a dormant state. Once this happens, your reputation cannot report and it cannot earn trading fees.
Your reputation can increase, decrease, or remain dormant based on your decisions. For example, the reputation can increase if you get the final outcome of a market right. Reporting on assigned markets when other users did not, posting and winning a fork bond, and receiving reputation from another address can all lead to an increase in your reputation.
Conversely, picking an outcome that’s not in accordance with the final outcome of a market, failing to report on assigned markets, purchasing a fork bond, and sending reputation to another address can all lead to a drop in reputation.
Trading REP
Nearly 8.8 million REP tokens were distributed during the ICO in August 2015. REP traded somewhere between $1.50 and $2.00 right after its ICO, and it’s worth $41.83 at the time of this writing. The token has had various significant price increases in its history. The first one occurred right after its Beta release, on March 2016. The second was on October 2016, and the third and largest one was on December 19th. At that time, the price rose to over $100 before establishing itself around the $90 mark.
Buying REP
REP can be purchased from some of the most popular crypto exchanges out there such as Bittrex, Binance, Kraken, Poloniex, and ChaoEX .Head over to CoinMarketCap for more details on this matter.
Storing your REP
Even though Augur doesn’t have an official wallet for its token, there are various dependable options out there. Of course, it’s recommended that you store your REP in an offline, hardware wallet. Popular options include the Ledger Nano S, Trezor, Jaxx, and Exodus.
Price Prediction
Augur had a clear trend that is moving upwards. Maybe not as fast as Bitcoin and other virtual currencies, but it is a very noticeable movement. It started un January 2016 with a price of $2 dollars, and now is being traded over $37 dollars.
Moreover, in moments of high volatility, the price reached $100 dollars, which is quite impressive. From where we are now, there is still place to grow in future terms.
If the virtual currency market keeps its positive trend, Augur will be able to prosper in the environment. But, as most of the other cryptocurrencies, it will have to pay attention at price reversals that tend to unexpectedly happen in the market.
In one year we could be talking of Augur being easily traded over $60 dollars.
Team
Considering the fact that Augur is one of the first platforms built on Ethereum, it’s not surprising that Vitalik Buterin himself is one of the advisors for the project. The 13-person team is led by Jack Peterson and Joey Krug.
Both individuals are highly experienced in the world of crypto, being the creators of Sidecoin, a famous Bitcoin fork.
Conclusion
Augur is one of the first platforms built on top of Ethereum back in 2015 and, despite multiple ups and downs, the overall view for its future is an optimistic one. It uses the “the wisdom of the crowd” to collect predictive data and report event outcomes.
Despite not being part of our daily lives, the potential uses and benefits of such a platform are practically infinite, despite a noticeable competition from a similar platform called Gnosis.
Augur Contacts and Additional information:
