Augur (REP)
Introduction
Market place representing a decentralised oracle using a peer-to-peer protocol based on Ethereum’s ecosystem. Augur was deployed in the form of a default script of type ERC-777. It allows any Internet user registered on its network to create a market around the future result of any event in the real world (elections, sports events, unit valuation of a token).
It’s classified as a trading token in the DeFi space. In the past, Augur has faced polemics linking certain markets deployed by some internauts of its community, which allowed to commit funds in order to bet on the death of bad public personalities perceived by some.
Foundation
While in its early days the entity was first registered in Estonia, its current headquarters is based in San Francisco (California).It is called the Forecast Foundation, holds $5.3 million as of December 3, 2020, according to Xangle.io, and the total staff involved full time in the activities of such a market amounts to 13 members.
Founders
Jack Peterson (Co-Founder) :
Co-founder and senior developer at Augur, he holds a PhD in biophysics from the University of California.
Bio Resume : Dyffy (Lead Developer), Tinybike Interactive (Software Developer), Oregon State University (Mathematic Instructor)
Joey Krug (Co-Founder) :
Co-founder and senior front-end developer within the Augur environment, he became later co-head investment manager at Pantera Capital in June 2017.
Bio Resume : Forecast Foundation (Co-Founder), Beam.io (Co-Founder), 0x (Advisor), Origin (Advisor), Augur (Senior Front-end Developer)
Advisers :
Vitalik Buterin :
His support and advice is very important for any project in the sector.
Here is what he has to say about Augur :
“I think Augur is one of the most promising applications of block chain technology; the prediction markets have the potential to serve a very valuable purpose in society, and to be a key ingredient in a very wide range of applications, and Augur is well positioned to take this niche”.
Ron Bernstein :
Renowned as an outstanding futures options trader with more than 20 years of experience, he became an advisor at Augur in 2015 and then founded Augment Partners, a technology company that works to build strong financial models in the growing world of decentralized trading. This company was later acquired by Coinbase and is known as Paradex.io. As of December 4, 2019, it ceases its consulting activities with Augur.
Robin Hanson :
Dr. Hanson is the godfather of prediction markets and is considered to be responsible for many of the ideas implemented in Augur.
Robin Dale Hanson (born August 28, 1959[1]) is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University[2] and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University.[3] He is known as an expert on idea futures and markets, and he was involved in the creation of the Foresight Institute’s Foresight Exchange and DARPA’s FutureMAP project. He invented market scoring rules like LMSR (Logarithmic Market Scoring Rule)[4] used by prediction markets such as Consensus Point (where Hanson is Chief Scientist[5]), and has conducted research on signalling.
Joe Castello :
Joe has been a tech executive and CEO for the last 25 years. He became CEO of Cadence Design Systems in 1987 and over the next decade grew the company from $10M to $1B to become the leader in electronic design automation (EDA) — the software used to design all electronic circuits today. In recognition, he received the Phil Kaufman award, thehighest accolade in the EDA industry. Joe has also served on the board of dozens of companies like Oracle, Macromedia, Clarify and Mercury Interactive.
Community :
Its community is divided into 3 types of participants :
- Market Creators
(Internet users creating a new betting event for the Augur community)
- Results Reporters
(Internet users who check the status of the funds committed & validate, or not, the finalization of the forecasts)
- Traders (Internet users who bet on the realisation of a future event, involving more or less large sums of money)
To become a member of the Augur network, Internet users must set up an electronic wallet. The provider of these wallets will not be able to access your funds (consultation). It will allow the user to connect to the network, and to store funds under any form of tokenisation as long as they are based on the Augur market.
The Augur markets are managed by its users, using the governance system called, “Proof of Stake” and implementing additional rules related to interactions between bettors.
