Coinbase recently announced that they would be providing a listing for three further cryptocurrencies. These were EOS (EOS), Maker (MKR) and Augur (REP).

The coins will be made available to trade on their Coinbase Pro platform, and will be launched in four stages- transfer only, post-only, limit-only, and full trading.

While EOS and Maker are already popular projects among the crypto-sphere, Augur-however, less so.

So what exactly is Augur? Augur is a decentralized prediction market that uses the Reputation (REP) token as its native cryptocurrency and is built on the Ethereum platform. It addresses the risks and limitations of centralized prediction markets in the status quo.

A prediction market is a market in which entities can speculate the outcomes of future events. Prediction markets can be used to evaluate trends and how long they’re going to exist.

Participants can trade shares that represent potential outcomes of future events. If the participant is correct, they collect all of the shares in the speculation- but if incorrect they lose the shares in the speculation.

There are several risks and limitations of the existing status quo in regards to the prediction markets. Firstly, they prevent global participation, so not everyone can participate in these centralized markets.

Secondly, there is a limitation to the number and types of markets that can be created and traded, while the central party requires absolute trust that the intermediary will not steal fund and resolve markets correctly.

However, how exactly does Augur solve some of the above problems? Well, in Augur’s marketplace anybody can participate. Augur has no borders or limitations. Any market can be created without censorship on the Augur platform. Users will not need to worry that their markets will be rejected or removed from the platform.

Augur’s prediction market uses automated contracts to administer where funds are stored and how they are transferred. This removes the possibility of stolen funds and markets not settling correctly.

Also to consider is that Augur’s fees are competitively priced, so they will presumably be cheaper than centralized alternatives charging fixed fees.

Why is the Reputation (REP) token valuable? The token is required to initiate a market and to incentivize honest reporters financially.

Currently, prediction markets are limited because not everybody wants to participate can along with several other obstacles. Augur plan to remove these hurdles via their transparent blockchain-based platform and allowing all interested parties to benefit equally from predictions markets.

Source