Augur, a peer-to-peer prediction market platform, is all set to launch its main network on July 9th at 11:01 PST.

Augur raised $5.5 million in 2015 by offering its token REP in a crowdsale. Augur was one of the earliest ICO’s on the Ethereum blockchain and has been under development since.

Decentralized Prediction Markets

The platform allows users to trustlessly create prediction markets on the outcome of virtually any future event. Users can create markets for an event with a designated reporter and subsequently, traders can purchase shares on the probable outcomes. At the end of the event, the settlement fees are paid out based on the outcome. The platform has an inbuilt conflict resolution model and it incentivizes REP token holders to correct any misinformation to ensure the accuracy of the real world information at hand. The whole procedure is conducted in a peer-to-peer manner without any centralized party.

Prediction markets are viewed as an effective tool to make decisions because, unlike traditional decision making, where knowledge is sourced from a single source, these markets allow to source information from the wisdom of the crowd. Allowing people to bet on an outcome would result in efficient decision making because people have an opportunity to make money off their unique insights. Using blockchain technology to make the whole process decentralized and efficient would accelerate the use cases for prediction markets.

Migration

After initiation of the main network, the current smart contract holding the REP tokens will be frozen and the balances will be automatically migrated to a new smart contract. The migration is expected to be completed smoothly after a few hours past the launch.

However, users who have their tokens deposited on decentralized exchanges (DEX) such as EtherDelta and IDEX are urged to withdraw their holdings to a different wallet or a centralized exchange.

In an official blog post, they stated:

“If you have REP in the Ether/ForkDelta or IDEX exchange contracts — you must withdrawal it prior to the migration on Monday, July 9th at 11:01AM PT to successfully receive new REP in the migration. Please help us get the word out as we approach deployment day.”

Users who do not hold their tokens on decentralized exchanges are not required to do anything to prepare for the launch.

HackerOne, a San Francisco based security startup, is managing the bug bounty for the Augur Project. Fixing critical vulnerabilities on the platform will be rewarded with up to $200,000.

Augur is undoubtedly one of the most ambitious projects in the Ethereum ecosystem. Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, was one of the first advisors to get onboard. It will be interesting and insightful to see how the platform will perform post launch.