It’s been a few years since the last media scare about prediction markets. So we were overdue for this week’s handwringing about Augur, digital currencies, and assassinations.
Augur, which has been under development since 2015 and launched this month, is a set of smart contracts built on the Ethereum blockchain. It’s intentionally decentralized, meaning that anyone can use it to propose wagers, anyone can bet on the outcome, and human judges known as reporters have a financial incentive honestly to decide whether the event happened or not. No central authority exists to reject unacceptable, or illegal, wagers, writes Declan McCullagh in his latest piece at Reason.
from Hit & Run https://ift.tt/2uVpvsK
via IFTTT