2018-7-18 00:28 |
The Growing Popularity Of The Augur Betting Platform
Lately, the Augur prediction platform’s popularity has increased significantly. According to statistics from the Predictions.Global website, the betting platform has gained traction in the online community. Predictions.Global is a site that allows gamblers to view the markets offered on Augur without necessarily placing a bet. Surprisingly, Augur is barely a week old, yet it is currently one of the top-ranked applications on the Ethereum blockchain.
As one of the most intensive DApps on the Ethereum network, many expect Augur to develop into a significant instrument for crowdsourcing of human knowledge and expertise. While this vision might seem far-fetched now, it is evident that Augur is a reckoning force with the number of markets and registered user increasing by the day. As per the data sourced from Predictions.Global, Augur's open interest grew rapidly within the first three days of betting. Open interest is a parameter that represents the amount gamblers are risking the outcome of real-life events.
Moreover, data from another statistician, DappRadar, has confirmed the growing interest in the Augur betting platform. Instead of evaluating open interest, DappRadar measured the total trading volume passing through Augur’s smart contracts. Remarkably, DappRadar established that the site has traded over 3,000 ETH (equivalent to $1.5 million) since its inauguration. Also, a sizeable portion of the trading volume (more than 33%) has been traded in the past 24 hours.
Availability Of Numerous MarketsBesides an increase in users and open interest, the Augur platform has also embraced diversification by allowing users to create multiple gambling markets. In this regard, Predictions.Global had identified over 300 different markets at the time of writing. However, most of these markets remain unused, with gamblers favoring the more traditional options. Precisely, the market that attracted most users, as well as the highest open interest, asked gamblers whether the price of ETH will surpass $500 by the end of 2018.
As expected of any decentralized platform, the predictions offered by users can be ludicrous at times. For instance, there is a market that seeks to solicit bets on the existence of God.
Innovativeness And VarietyIn addition to being several, the markets created by Augur users also vary significantly. According to Ryan Berckmans, Predictions.Global founder, the platform currently has countless markets which indicate the innovativeness of its members. Ryan specifically highlighted Liquidity Health, a user who introduced markets for the spread of epidemics such as the human-borne Nipah virus. Through their Twitter account, Liquidity health revealed that the reason for creating such a market was to leverage predictions to fight disease. Naturally, many people have criticized this move because it seemingly offers a monetary incentive to spread viruses. Nonetheless, Augur’s Joey Krug sees such apps as being very informative and interesting.
The Augur beating platform has undoubtedly spurred creativity, with some blockchain projects using it to assess the accountability of ICOs. Particularly, MedCredits, a project that is organizing a crowdsale, introduced a market asking users whether it will stick to its roadmap. As per the whitepaper, MedCredits stated that it would release its DApp on the Ethereum network on 15th October. At the time of writing, users had staked over $5,100, with the odds of MedCredits following its plans rising to an impressive 85%.
The Bug ChallengeDespite the data mentioned above showing an obvious increase in Augur’s popularity, there is one glaring shortcoming. On the first day of trading, Augur had a record high number of users, peaking at 265. This figure made it the most popular DApp on the Ethereum network, but it has since declined to slightly over 100. Nevertheless, Joey Krug believes that this dip is understandable. Basing his argument on the posts in Augur’s online forums, Joey stated that the excitement had subsided due to the prevalence of bugs on the betting platform.
In response to the reported bugs, the Forecast Foundation has since released four updates of the application and is currently working in partnership with Infura to solve connectivity issues. Therefore, Krug assets, that the users on Augur, albeit fewer, will stake more cash due to the platform's improved dependability. Furthermore, Augur will settle the initial bets this week, with users who placed accurate bets receiving their winnings. Krug is confident that this will attract more users to the platform.
Ultimately, augur intends to enable users to create markets on everything, without incurring the charges imposed by intermediaries. However, this vision is still a mirage, mainly due to the presence of technical inhibitions and high gas cots on the Ethereum blockchain.
Similar to Notcoin - Blum - Airdrops In 2024