Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace • Hacker News Board

Re: Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace

#11

Post by busterarm » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

ericb wrote: post #5

busterarm wrote: post #2

Hard pass. Blockchain and Gambling still don't really go together yet. Moreover, I wouldn't touch anything intersecting this space that doesn't have Rick Dudley directly involved. Not only does he have a 15 year headstart working on some of these problems, but he also owns patents on provably fair online gaming systems. The site acts like the main challenges are legal when really they're technical.

Have you actually looked at Augur? It is up and running and working well.

You'd think that based around the context of my statements that I'm not an unaware bystander and that I might already know something about Augur, what their tech is and who is involved in it. Guess not.

In a very narrowly defined space, it is something that works, yes, but as always with tech in this space "there be dragons".

As a side note, I stg that every "new thing" built on ethereum is just a chain of underpants gnome logic. Except the "???" is something you can drive a star system through.

Re: Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace

#12

Post by camjohnson26 » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #9

ericb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually looked at Augur? It is up and running and working well.

So was MtGox, for the longest time!

That's not a fair comparison. Mt. Gox grew too quickly and couldn't keep up with the massive security requirements for a cryptocurrency exchange. Not to mention they may have had employees embezzling money. Augur has taken years to refine their strategy and do the launch correctly, and the code is working just as expected. There could still be issues like with any innovation but to compare this to Mt. Gox is not at all fair.

Re: Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace

#13

Post by wbobeirne » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #9

ericb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually looked at Augur? It is up and running and working well.

So was MtGox, for the longest time!

MtGox held total control of the private keys, so I'd argue it was never in a position to be relied on.

Re: Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace

#14

Post by xu_ituairo » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

blanderman wrote: post #3

"In the summer of 2018, assassination markets became popular among bettors. If those markets are seen to incentivise people to take illegal action, Augur could be shut down completely."

It’ll be tough shutting down what is essentially a bunch of smart contracts on Ethereum and an open-source client on Github.

Re: Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace

#15

Post by camjohnson26 » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

blanderman wrote: post #3

"In the summer of 2018, assassination markets became popular among bettors. If those markets are seen to incentivise people to take illegal action, Augur could be shut down completely."

To shut down Augur you would have to shut down the Ethereum network, which would require coordination between world governments to pull off, and still probably wouldn't completely shut down the network.

Re: Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace

#16

Post by prepend » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC

wskinner wrote: post #4

> Settlement - once the reporting has been complete, and it’s verified by the community, the bettors who bought shares on the correct outcome are paid - as is the market creator. Can anyone comment on how settlement actually works? A persistent problem with new tokens is handwavy explanations of absolutely core features. With a human legal system, humans can argue over intent. When “code is law”, pure intentions alon…

Likewise, I was trying to figure this out. And haven’t yet. In most prediction markets the reason for centralization is as the market maker or arbiter. For example predictit.com will definitively say if some testified or not during the market term [0]. So arguments over what testifying means get handled fairly.

In augur the community seems to determine this based on how much they spend to reconcile the transaction. So lots of people could tip the scale. On big tickets this would likely attract attention, but on smaller items it could be a problem unless members of the community have reputation and identities.

It seems like, from reading the faq [1], that it really just boils down to a proof of stake consensus method with multiple rounds of dispute before and after a market is finalized. With a documented fork procedure. So if consensus gets manipulated, it is very clear and the market itself loses reputation through that they tried to design in their fork process. But would also get likely checked by a “hard fork” away from whomever is running that particular blockchain and manipulating accounts.

The “ethics arbitrage” opportunity would be to look for markets where the outcome is realistically fuzzy “did someone lie” or has an invalid outcome and tip the scales without detection.

[0] https://www.predictit.org/Contract/9262/Will-Trump-testify-t...

[1] https://docs.augur.net/#tentative-outcome

Re: Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace

#17

Post by MusaTheRedGuard » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #2

Hard pass. Blockchain and Gambling still don't really go together yet. Moreover, I wouldn't touch anything intersecting this space that doesn't have Rick Dudley directly involved. Not only does he have a 15 year headstart working on some of these problems, but he also owns patents on provably fair online gaming systems. The site acts like the main challenges are legal when really they're technical.

Lol gambling/speculation might be one of the few places blockchain has product market fit

Re: Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace

#18

Post by camjohnson26 » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

The main problem on Augur right now is volume. Only a few markets have orders to trade against, and it seems like the cryptocurrency markets are the most actively used. I tried to use the platform to make a small bet against Tesla, but obviously you need someone to take the other side of the bet.

Still a very cool platform. A lot of people use predictions.global to get a birds eye view of the markets.

https://predictions.global/

And the Discord channel is always busy. The mods there are very responsive.

https://discordapp.com/invite/faud6Fx

Re: Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace

#19

Post by busterarm » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 2:25 PM UTC

MusaTheRedGuard wrote: post #17

busterarm wrote: post #2

Hard pass. Blockchain and Gambling still don't really go together yet. Moreover, I wouldn't touch anything intersecting this space that doesn't have Rick Dudley directly involved. Not only does he have a 15 year headstart working on some of these problems, but he also owns patents on provably fair online gaming systems. The site acts like the main challenges are legal when really they're technical.

Lol gambling/speculation might be one of the few places blockchain has product market fit

Product market fit surely, but a long list of technical challenges left to solve as well.

You have better odds in Vegas.

Re: Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace

#20

Post by notahacker » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 2:26 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #2

Hard pass. Blockchain and Gambling still don't really go together yet. Moreover, I wouldn't touch anything intersecting this space that doesn't have Rick Dudley directly involved. Not only does he have a 15 year headstart working on some of these problems, but he also owns patents on provably fair online gaming systems. The site acts like the main challenges are legal when really they're technical.

I'd say they're neither: they're marketing. The average gambler isn't that bothered about the actuarial unfairness of their bookmaker or casino, and the bookmakers don't make fortunes because their cut is particularly large but because they are very good at hooking people on making more bets, and having enough volume to lay a big bet.

The one area where blockchain based gambling might offer a significant theoretical advance is games when all the gambling is contained within auditable code that's provably actuarially fair, but people generally don't get interested in slot machines because the ability to audit expected return is important to them (if they do, it's probably because they have a strong impulse to disregard that understanding and/or are gambling sums they don't care about...).

When it comes to bets on the outside world, crypto-gambling is arguably a lot worse than a high street bookmaker as it involves a de facto side bet on (i) the value of the crypto asset not declining during the bet duration and (ii) the oracle being reliable. It's not like you can't get odds or participate in more obscure bets or prediction markets using regular currency on p2p platforms or even with high street bookmakers either, it's just they're relatively niche interests...