What is Augur and the Impact it has on Ethereum Blockchain?

 Augur is a new application in the works that will run on the Ethereum  blockchain. The goal of the application is to give users the ability to  predict markets/events. The predictions could be binary, scalar, or  categorical. For example, somebody could place predictions on things  like “how many Netflix subscribers there will be in Q4” or “will Kanye  become president in 2020”. The markets for this type of application could be endless. The  diagram below shows the current process which is shorter and more  efficient than before. 6,000 lines of code shorter to be exact!  

What was Removed?

• Some events had  confusing conditions before (so instead of making “Will Elon Musk ever  get to Mars” and having one market until say 2030, instead users will  create markets like “Will Elon make it to Mars by the end of 2018?” and  another one for 2019, etc.)
• Vitalik who is the  founder of Ethereum suggested taking out the reporting commit because of  its complexity and cost (if people collude, the system will just end up  going to the next backstop).
• Before markets with  higher amounts of outstanding shares in the first wave of reporting were  getting more reporters so that was removed.
• Indeterminate and unethical are lumped under one invalid now.

Release Schedule

1. Security Audits (in progress) 2. Code Bug Bounties 3. Bug Bounty Prediction Market Release 4. Augur  Lite release with a maximum amount of shares outstanding / open  interest in the markets (meaning only a small amount of money can be  locked up in them). Alternatively, make it so users can only deposit a  maximum amount, say, 5 ETH. 5. Full Augur Release   The direction for Augur  is to launch slowly to avoid risk. In the beginning the core developer  team will essentially have power to replace and upgrade contracts in the  case of a fault event or vulnerability after launch. They want to keep  Augur on “training wheels” to start and slowly remove these help  processes over time as the system proves to be secure. Currently, if  something went wrong updates could be made very quickly to solve it. In conclusion, more Dapps like  this are getting developed everyday. I believe over the next year the  number of use cases as well as ideas for the Ethereum blockchain will  rise significantly. Stay tuned for the exciting ramp up of a technology  that can revolutionize the world.