They were supposed to be used for innocent activities, such as predicting which team would win the Super Bowl. However, the game plan is different for some, and it’s not at all in a good way.
Prediction platform Augur launched earlier this month, and almost immediately found itself being used for unsavory practices. This includes outfits that are using it to allow users to predict assassinations. On the hit list for one outfit is U.S. President Donald Trump.
From fun to very bad?
Augur rolled out its protocol with the intent to revolutionize the prediction markets space. It’s a decentralized oracle and peer-to-peer protocol for prediction markets. It’s free and open to the public.
Augur works on Ethereum Blockchain.
Some have been drawn to it to carry on poorly, and their actions are drawing ire. By allowing people to place bets on real-world events, a so-called “assassination market" has been born, notes Mashable.
Observers point out that the decentralized prediction platform can be the best censorship resistant platform for these kinds of bets. This sets the stage for some people to try and capitalize on the death of another.
Mashable noted the following about how:
The latest version is different in that it's simply a bet on whether Donald Trump will be killed by a certain date. Slightly less ghastly, but it still potentially incentivizes a crime, as anyone who could accurately predict the president's death would stand to gain financially.
Augur responds
An Augur open-source protocol called Forecast Foundation is at the root of this so-called assassination market.
Augur is aware of how its platform is being used. Here’s some information it provides about the matter.
"Users who decide to run the Augur code are the ones who perform trades and create markets on the Augur protocol. All functions of routing orders, matching orders, processing trades, escrow funds, manage the order book and resolve and settle markets are all operated and run on the Ethereum blockchain itself through a set of smart contracts, the Augur core protocol. Miners running Ethereum nodes route, match, store and process orders, trades and markets on the Augur protocol. All funds are escrowed and transferred directly on the Ethereum blockchain itself."
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
