4 ms·

Wouldn't such an exchange be a good use case for a smart contract? It would make it very transparent, if the exchange is honest. As a history of all bids, payo

Wouldn't such an exchange be a good use case for a smart contract? It would make it very transparent, if the exchange is honest. As a history of all bids, payouts and judgments would be recorded on a blockchain. It probably also would do away with the KYC, so everybody could participate. And nobody would have to give away their private data. Thinking about it ... if the smart contract would let users post new bets as tokens and appoint judges, the whole thing would be eternal. Individual users and judges might come and go. But the platform would live on forever and the history of bets would be recorded forever.

nickphx 4y ago
- brazed_blotch 4y ago
  Care to elaborate? Sounds ideal frankly.
  - melony 4y ago
    The existing prediction markets have been regulated out of existence thanks to Kalshi. See PredictIt, Polymarket, YC is doing a great job of fulfilling Thiel's vision of building monopolies. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-passage-of-polymarket https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-passage-of-polymar... https://www.usbets.com/did-kalshi-kill-predictit/ https://www.usbets.com/did-kalshi-kill-predictit/ https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478370047735341056.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478370047735341056.html
Proven 4y ago
> Wouldn't such an exchange be a good use case for a smart contract? There were several such "decentralized" projects (Augur, etc.), but I don't know of anyone who uses them. I kind of stopped following the "permissionless" space after several projects turned out to be too scammy for my liking. > It probably also would do away with the KYC, so everybody could participate. Nobody would have to give away their private data. That's exactly why they're not allowed. If you can't easily get fiat in and out of such contracts, they can hardly matter. Kalshi: not a novel idea, but it's good to see another implementation. Several solid blockchain projects (also permissioned/KYC, but based on blockchain, with distributed oracles) are launching similar markets in 2023. I think they will have an advantage because all participating financial institutions will be able to create own markets without reinventing the wheel or building their own in terms of underlying infrastructure (APIs, smart contracts, etc.). Some already have simple apps (decentralized price feeds, etc.) in beta now - they just need to add the ability to bet on outcomes. I don't want to "advertise" their names here but you can look them up on the Internet.
Jerrrry 4y ago
It actually is ideal, given trusted API/Oracles, a timeout period to ensure mis-published data is corrected promptly, and a few other non-obvious gotchas. You could even have trusted middle-men that collect a Fee iff ambiguity is discovered and an appeal is wagered against the escrow. I'm sure it exists and got rugpulled already.
- JonathanBeuys 4y ago
  If it is set up so that the users can put in bets and appoint judges, then it can't ever be rugpulled. Individual judges could turn hostile. But if the judges get paid for their work, a great track record might be worth more than any rugpull.
  - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
    So a person could build trust and society could benefit from their good behavior and they would make money by being trusted?
- tmansour 4y ago
  Augur tried this and doesn't seem to have gained a lot traction doing so. Any staking schemes that were developed were relatively easily gamed and that led to distrust in the system. We, like traditional financial exchanges, define the contracts upfront with clear rules on how they will be settled, then follow the letter of the law very strictly when settling a market. In general, we've found market certainty to be more important that accuracy: ie. having pre-defined rules that everyone can agree on and that are pre-set is more important than those rules being the "correct rules" (not that having correct rules isn't important).
llamaimperative 4y ago
Such a thing exists (Polymarket) and the whole setup has probably precluded many, many, many people from using it including myself. I got halfway through setup before giving up. By contrast, I signed up for Kalshi and bought 3 contracts in the last 30 minutes. Additionally, smart contracts don't actually solve the primary source of (unaccepted) risk: the oracle.
- mritchie712 4y ago
  Did you already have Polygon and a wallet (e.g. metamask)? If you didn't have that, I could see it being a pain too much of a pain to deal with. It only took me a minute to use Polymarket, but I already had the prerequisites above.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
    I love Polymarket. It's what dapps should aspire to be
brap 4y ago
This is a nice idea in theory, but in practice you have to really trust the judges. Suppose that 99.9% of people thought that X is going to happen, but it didn't. If the judges are a representative sample, then 99.9% of them were wrong and are about to lose money. Unless they cheat.

nickphx 4y ago

brazed_blotch 4y ago
Care to elaborate? Sounds ideal frankly.
- melony 4y ago
  The existing prediction markets have been regulated out of existence thanks to Kalshi. See PredictIt, Polymarket, YC is doing a great job of fulfilling Thiel's vision of building monopolies. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-passage-of-polymarket https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-passage-of-polymar... https://www.usbets.com/did-kalshi-kill-predictit/ https://www.usbets.com/did-kalshi-kill-predictit/ https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478370047735341056.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478370047735341056.html

Proven 4y ago

> Wouldn't such an exchange be a good use case for a smart contract? There were several such "decentralized" projects (Augur, etc.), but I don't know of anyone who uses them. I kind of stopped following the "permissionless" space after several projects turned out to be too scammy for my liking. > It probably also would do away with the KYC, so everybody could participate. Nobody would have to give away their private data. That's exactly why they're not allowed. If you can't easily get fiat in and out of such contracts, they can hardly matter. Kalshi: not a novel idea, but it's good to see another implementation. Several solid blockchain projects (also permissioned/KYC, but based on blockchain, with distributed oracles) are launching similar markets in 2023. I think they will have an advantage because all participating financial institutions will be able to create own markets without reinventing the wheel or building their own in terms of underlying infrastructure (APIs, smart contracts, etc.). Some already have simple apps (decentralized price feeds, etc.) in beta now - they just need to add the ability to bet on outcomes. I don't want to "advertise" their names here but you can look them up on the Internet.

Jerrrry 4y ago

It actually is ideal, given trusted API/Oracles, a timeout period to ensure mis-published data is corrected promptly, and a few other non-obvious gotchas. You could even have trusted middle-men that collect a Fee iff ambiguity is discovered and an appeal is wagered against the escrow. I'm sure it exists and got rugpulled already.

JonathanBeuys 4y ago
If it is set up so that the users can put in bets and appoint judges, then it can't ever be rugpulled. Individual judges could turn hostile. But if the judges get paid for their work, a great track record might be worth more than any rugpull.
- danielmarkbruce 4y ago
  So a person could build trust and society could benefit from their good behavior and they would make money by being trusted?
tmansour 4y ago
Augur tried this and doesn't seem to have gained a lot traction doing so. Any staking schemes that were developed were relatively easily gamed and that led to distrust in the system. We, like traditional financial exchanges, define the contracts upfront with clear rules on how they will be settled, then follow the letter of the law very strictly when settling a market. In general, we've found market certainty to be more important that accuracy: ie. having pre-defined rules that everyone can agree on and that are pre-set is more important than those rules being the "correct rules" (not that having correct rules isn't important).

llamaimperative 4y ago

Such a thing exists (Polymarket) and the whole setup has probably precluded many, many, many people from using it including myself. I got halfway through setup before giving up. By contrast, I signed up for Kalshi and bought 3 contracts in the last 30 minutes. Additionally, smart contracts don't actually solve the primary source of (unaccepted) risk: the oracle.

mritchie712 4y ago
Did you already have Polygon and a wallet (e.g. metamask)? If you didn't have that, I could see it being a pain too much of a pain to deal with. It only took me a minute to use Polymarket, but I already had the prerequisites above.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  I love Polymarket. It's what dapps should aspire to be

brap 4y ago

This is a nice idea in theory, but in practice you have to really trust the judges. Suppose that 99.9% of people thought that X is going to happen, but it didn't. If the judges are a representative sample, then 99.9% of them were wrong and are about to lose money. Unless they cheat.