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Bitcoin Global News (BGN)

November 06, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- Back in July, Augur seemed to be on top of the world in terms of traditional financial indicators, including being the top Dapp in terms of coin volume and daily users. Then, the bear market intensified and Augur’s value fell with the rest. Unlike others like Bitcoin and new stablecoins, Augur never really swung back anywhere close to its previous position until very recently.

It is not really the fact that it has gained a lot of value in the short term, so much as it is the amount it has gained in the short term that is most interesting, for a very specific reason. Even in what can be considered its best time by financial performance, it was doing an average volume of about 900 Ether, daily. If you do not remember what Augur is, just think about a place on the internet on which anyone can bet on anything.

That is the basic definition of what Augur is, as a platform. Now, according to Coindesk, the mid-term elections happening in the United States have caused the latest resurgence in its usage. Given this, it would seem that people care about giving their takes on political elections in a way which they can be rewarded for. This idea of a  reward for any prediction is where Augur arguably becomes controversial. In the most simple sense, you can predict anything and win a certain amount of Augur’s REP coins if your prediction proves to be correct. Because of this, there have actually been controversial reveals of predictions related to assassinations and other unscrupulous events. Even so, some would argue that this is par for the course.

With decentralization comes an element of bad actors.

As with just about any Blockchain project, this is where the idea of adequate governance of the network comes in. Augur incentivizes performance in consensus with the networks. In other words, predictions that go too far against the grain are punished in a way to akin to the user losing his or her stake. Related to the jump because of the elections mentioned above, the platform has seen a sudden spike in 3,517 Ether related to election betting, but other areas of its operations are relatively stagnant, including daily user numbers. Because of this, even though any spike in usage is a good spike in theory, Augur still has a long way to go back to its all-time high.

By: BGN Editorial Staff