Just in time for the presidential election! Veteran ICO project, prediction market platform "Augur v2" completes upgrade.

After five years of development, Augur, the decentralized prediction market based on Ethereum, has finally announced the launch of its upgraded version "Augur v2" today. It claims to improve user experience by providing faster and lower fee services, introducing a solution for resolving invalid markets, and enabling betting with the USD stablecoin DAI.

Augur v2 has been deployed on the Ethereum mainnet

According to the official Augur Blog, the Augur v2 protocol contracts have been successfully deployed on the Ethereum mainnet, with the REPv2 token contract address as follows:

0x221657776846890989a759BA2973e427DfF5C9bB

It is important to note that REPv2 tokens have introduced a "Use It Or Lose It" mechanism, where REP token holders are not required to immediately migrate to v2, but in the event of a hard fork by Augur v2, original REP token holders must participate in the entire fork process, or the tokens will be permanently lost.

The most significant change is that in the previous version of Augur, prediction markets could only be bet on with Ether, and many predictions are long-term, such as presidential elections, World Cup champions, etc., requiring users to endure Ether price fluctuations for an extended period. Augur v2 will allow users to transact using the stablecoin DAI pegged to the US dollar.

Preventing Invalid Markets

Augur v2 has implemented a new mechanism to prevent malicious actors and opportunists from creating fraudulent invalid markets. For example, in the old YES/NO markets, if the outcome is YES or NO, users betting on the correct outcome would receive one Ether, but if the market description is unclear, lacks a clear expiration date, and the market is deemed invalid, both parties would receive 0.5 Ether.

This creates an opportunity for speculators (market creators) who can bet on the cheaper side of YES or NO before the market ends, depending on which side is cheaper, below 0.5 Ether, creating an arbitrage opportunity. Therefore, Augur v2 now includes an option to bet on invalid markets.

Launching Before the US Election

Augur, an iconic ICO project, issued 11,000 REP tokens in the fall of 2015, raising $5.2 million for the platform. With the rise of DApps in 2018, Augur's usage peaked but then declined, and another star peer-to-peer prediction platform, Veil, announced it would cease operations.

Strictly speaking, prediction markets still fall within the realm of gambling, but Augur has garnered widespread attention and expectations from the crypto community due to its decentralized nature. Although far from being mainstream, with a total locked value of only $506,000, the launch of the v2 version comes at an opportune time. As the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, international major professional sports events are set to resume, and the US presidential election is scheduled for later this year, prediction markets are poised to carve out their own path in the competitive DeFi space.