Decentralized Currency and the Emergence of Surprisingly Diverse Betting Opportunities

The market for decentralized currency has experienced tremendous growth, and now companies are capitalizing on betting markets. Now participants on the blockchain platform Augur can bet on assassinations and other future events. Users can place bets if a particular company is going to fail in a specific year, if the weather is going to change, or if Warren Buffet is going to die in 2018. Created by the non-profit Forecast Foundation, the platform launched on July 9 and is using Ethereum for its base currency. While still not scalable, this type of platform is already making waves in the industry. Part of the success of Augur lies that no one person or entity can shut down the betting market. Since the website uses the decentralized currency Ethereum, it's not controlled by any bank of government. Like Bitcoin, Etherium's value comes through a network of people. If the group of people disappears, the value of the decentralized currency will not be affected. How are the bets correct settled? Augur uses something as "reporters." Reporters are current Augur users, and part of their job is to make sure there is consensus agreement on the settlements of bets. If the REP holders don't call the correct results or they try to game the system in any way, they are at risk of losing their tokens. Passive REP users are penalized, and users who don't participate in hotly contested events can lose five percent of their total REP earnings. By letting users take control of the betting and letting them bet on a variety of events, Augur has created a unique marketplace for the decentralized currency. If a user's predictions come true, they make a share of the profits. Users can bet against each other thus forming a fair market where all information is public.