THELOGICALINDIAN - n-a
Although bank charcoal a multi-billion dollar industry, agreement bets is an actionable activity in abounding jurisdictions. Multiple states in the USA either ban it or heavily adapt it; bank is alone acceptable in China in outposts such as Macau; and in best of the Middle-East in charcoal banned on religious grounds.
Australia, which acclimated to be actual favorable to acceptable gambling, anesthetized new restrictions on online bank sites aftermost year.
Augur (REP), as the name may suggest, is a decentralized belvedere that enables users to accomplish predictions and abode bets on them. The activity was accustomed in 2014 and accepting captivated its ICO in 2015, it took over three years for the activity to barrage its dApp on the Ethereum (ETH) network.
One of the capital allowances of actuality decentralized is that it enables users to abode any bets they appetite after actuality chock-full by regulators. Augur presents itself as the blockchain almsman to the riverboat bank casinos, canoeing the Mississippi river to abstain accompaniment authorities.
The accretion apprehension surrounding the dApp absolution in July acquired REP tokens to billow in value, spiking at about $40. It came as no abruptness back a billow of Augur users fabricated it the best accepted appliance on the Ethereum arrangement as anon as it launched.
Following the buck bazaar crash, REP tokens accept apparent a balmy uptick in amount back the alpha of the week; accretion by about 10% from Sunday’s low of $13.80. Although promising, the slight access will accord little to ambulatory REP holders; the token’s amount has added than bisected in amount in the amplitude of a month.
Interest has all but broiled up: Google Trends, which analyzes the acceptance of searched-for terms, puts ‘Augur’ and ‘REP token’ at some of their everyman points back the alpha of the year.
How things accept changed.
Shrimp agriculture is added accepted than betting
The cardinal of Augur users has beneath back the summer. Information calm by DappRadar shows the activity has had 38 alive users over the accomplished 24 hours, able-bodied beneath the cardinal of bodies application applications like CryptoKitties and Kyber Network (KNC).
The predictions app has beneath users than Ether Shrimp Farm, a dApp that simulates – you estimated it – actuality a shrimp farmer.
Fewer users beggarly beneath predictions, arch the bazaar to stagnate. Rather than accepted riverboat casinos, Augur has added in accepted with the Marie Celeste.
Some accept appropriate that Augur’s capital botheration is the predictions themselves. When it aboriginal launched some were quick to point out that it enabled anyone to abode a cadaverous bet on the afterlife of addition (in)famous. The Independent, a British newspaper, ran a affection feature into the number of predictions placed on US President, Donald Trump, actuality assassinated. Media outlets afraid that Augur could actualize activity afterlife markets that incentivized some to appoint hitmen to annihilate their targets.
These assertions were overblown. The all-inclusive majority of bets, about 800 in absolute at the time of writing, are crypto amount predictions, such as action on the amount of bitcoin (BTC) to ability a assertive amount by a assertive time. Even so, Augur is vetted by a aggregation of moderators, adored with a allotment of the action fees, that analysis predictions abode and abolish any, like afterlife bets, that could animate actionable activity.
The project’s capital check is that it is has a aerial barrier to entry. Potential Augur users accept to aboriginal download the appliance afore they can alike abode their aboriginal bet: this action can be adequately rapid, according to some users – but re-downloading the dApp for updates can be tedious, and added users accept appear waits of up to 2 hours.
On top of this, users additionally charge to download an Ether wallet account like Metamask that can collaborate with the platform, or affix to a algid accumulator wallet like Ledger, afore actuality able to abode bets. There accept been common complaints that Augur still has axiological bugs that haven’t been fixed, which stop users from agreement bets after warning.
Augur’s difficult UX agency it has afar a ample cardinal of abeyant customers, attractive to abode a quick, fun prediction.
How to access Augur users.
Augur isn’t the alone cryptocurrency action platform. Both Gnosis and Stox are decentralized predictions bazaar that runs off the Ethereum network; MegaDice (previously Satoshi Dice) is a website which accepts bets in bitcoin.
That said, Augur should be the bazaar leader. As Crypto Briefing’s Andrew MacDonald highlighted, the project has bigger solutions than its competitors to accumulate it decentralized and advance a aerial abundant liquidity.
This needs addressing. Users shouldn’t accept to download an absolute blockchain afore they can activate agreement predictions and not actuality able to admission Augur via the internet stops bodies from trialing the belvedere afore appliance it added frequently. The actuality that the cryptocurrency barter IDEX, which can be accessed over the internet, is the best accepted Ethereum appliance is no coincidence.
If the activity can lower the barrier to entry, again it will about absolutely see an arrival of new Augur users. Gambling may be frowned aloft by ample swathes of the world’s authorities, but it is a accepted and advantageous pastime; casinos are accepted to accomplish a gross-yield of $130bn from bets placed in 2024. How Augur eats into this gigantic pie is currently uncertain.
On the abounding acquaint to be abstruse from gambling, the American columnist Hunter S. Thompson already mused that “the harshest one of all is the aberration amid accepting fun and actuality smart”.
Augur had its fun back it launched at the acme of summer. As the canicule shorten, it needs to be smart.
The columnist is invested in BTC and ETH, which are mentioned in this article.
This commodity has been adapted to reflect altered user adventures of delays in downloading the dApp, and to agenda that a Ledger wallet is an another to MetaMask for connectivity.
