

How Augur Works [video] - natrius
http://www.augur.net/blog/how-augur-works-video

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japaget
I was unable to view the video, but after exploring the site found that this
is a startup seeking to monetize prediction markets. This seems to me to be a
worthwhile idea that hasn't been tried before. With the demise of intrade.com,
their only competition seems to be PredictIt out of New Zealand. (Iowa
Electronic Markets appears to be a research and teaching tool rather than a
for-profit enterpise.)

Here are two of their main threats:

(1) Fraud. This may have taken down intrade.com and took down the Bitcoin
exchange Mt. Gox. One start-up that successfully avoided this problem is
PayPal.

(2) Being shut down by the government as an illegal gambling site. They need
to secure a no-action letter from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
(See the Wikipedia article on PredictIt.)

I plan to follow Augur with interest and wish them every success.

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natrius
Augur's key differentiator is that it's decentralized. It runs on Ethereum, a
programmable blockchain. There is nothing to shut down: it runs on thousands
of computers around the world.

Prediction markets are a well-defined interaction between people. Blockchain
technology lets us build anything in that category with near-zero transaction
costs and huge censorship resilience.

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jsprogrammer
How do I view the market? All I could find was the video and testimonials on
the main site.

~~~
natrius
Augur is currently pre-alpha, and built on top of Ethereum, which is pre-beta.
However, everything's developed in the open, so you're welcome to get set up
and see how things look. Email me if you run into any roadblocks.
niran@niran.org.

[https://github.com/AugurProject/augur-
client](https://github.com/AugurProject/augur-client)

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charleyramm
more fun than going to the bookies?

