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Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: sports-owner on January 12, 2016, 11:34:56 pm

Title: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: sports-owner on January 12, 2016, 11:34:56 pm
I have created the prediction market REPGENSIXTEEN.  every REPGENSIXTEEN will be settled for either 1bts if the Republicans win United States general election in 2016, or 0 bts if any other result happens. 

There is limited support in the GUI.  You can buy REPGENSIXTEEN like any other smartcoin.  Shorting is currently prevented by the GUI because there are no feeds.  If you would like to short you will have to do this in the CLI wallet.

borrow_asset account-name amount-to-borrow REPGENSIXTEEN amount-of-bts-collateral true

Collateral must be 1 for 1.  If you want to borrow 1000 REPGENSIXTEEN you will need to put up 1000 bts.  This is a smartcoin and is collateralized by the blockchain.  This is not an IOU.
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: puppies on January 13, 2016, 12:26:11 am
You might have done something wrong in setting this up.  Xerocs docs say this should work in the gui.  If I get a chance I'll try to set up a test prediction market to see.  Anything happening within the next week that we want to predict?  How about price of bitcoin .  Over under of $450 in one weeks time. 
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: puppies on January 13, 2016, 12:44:46 am
So.  I just created BTCPREDICT as a test.  I used Xeroc's script.  Still can't short in the GUI.  I think we need this fixed if we are going to be able to monetize these prediction markets. 

I am  going to go ahead with the test of BTCPREDICT.  The description is pretty self explanatory.  If you believe that on midnight UTC on 1-20-16 the price of BTC will be over $450 then buy BTCPREDICT.  I you believe that the price will be below $450 then short and sell.  Although you will have to do the shorting in the CLI.
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: donkeypong on January 13, 2016, 01:59:44 am
The Republicans are serving up lunch meat this time around. You might be more successful betting on the Democrats or an Independent.
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: sports-owner on January 13, 2016, 02:07:52 am
The Republicans are serving up lunch meat this time around. You might be more successful betting on the Democrats or an Independent.

It goes both ways.  If you short REPGENSIXTEEN and the republicans lose then you win.  You can bet for or against the republicans winning.
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: donkeypong on January 13, 2016, 03:08:24 am
Just having fun. Honestly, I'm very glad to see you trying this and I hope it works well.
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: puppies on January 13, 2016, 03:46:31 am
I think we're missing two pieces before this can take off. 

First of all we need it to work in the gui.  If people can only take one side of the bet without using the cli wallet then adoption won't happen. 

Secondly we need a better decentralized system of determining winnerss.

Stealth would also be a good thing.
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: roadscape on January 13, 2016, 03:53:02 am
Great initiative.. I've filed an issue on github and referenced this thread, hopefully it's an easy fix!
https://github.com/cryptonomex/graphene-ui/issues/667
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: donkeypong on January 13, 2016, 05:20:49 am
If I get a chance I'll try to set up a test prediction market to see.  Anything happening within the next week that we want to predict?  How about price of bitcoin .  Over under of $450 in one weeks time.

If you want to stick with politics and do some shorter term tests, you could try the U.S. election's primary elections and caucuses. The first one is Iowa, February 1st. Pre-election polls are close enough right now you could do Trump vs. Cruz for Iowa Republicans and Clinton vs. Sanders for Iowa Democratic. The dates do vary slightly between the two major political parties, so here are the schedules for both Republican and Democratic primaries/causes (links below). The dynamics are fluid, so it might be best to just model the Iowa caucus first and then see how things change (for example, pre-election polls show that other Republican candidates  have a strong chance of finishing in the Top 2 in the second state, which is New Hampshire).


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016)
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: xeroc on January 13, 2016, 06:33:45 am
You might have done something wrong in setting this up.  Xerocs docs say this should work in the gui.  If I get a chance I'll try to set up a test prediction market to see.  Anything happening within the next week that we want to predict?  How about price of bitcoin .  Over under of $450 in one weeks time. 
I actually haven't tried .. but thought it should work .. what exactly is the issue? won't take the collateral ratio of 1:1?
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: xeroc on January 13, 2016, 06:35:46 am
I think we're missing two pieces before this can take off. 

First of all we need it to work in the gui.  If people can only take one side of the bet without using the cli wallet then adoption won't happen. 

Secondly we need a better decentralized system of determining winnerss.

Stealth would also be a good thing.
I think (but haven't tested yet) .. that the final decision can be *delegated* to a SET of feed producers that publish the outcome ..
But I need to test this first ..
Title: Re: Help me with my prediction market
Post by: puppies on January 13, 2016, 06:50:48 am
You might have done something wrong in setting this up.  Xerocs docs say this should work in the gui.  If I get a chance I'll try to set up a test prediction market to see.  Anything happening within the next week that we want to predict?  How about price of bitcoin .  Over under of $450 in one weeks time. 
I actually haven't tried .. but thought it should work .. what exactly is the issue? won't take the collateral ratio of 1:1?

It throws an error because there are no feeds.  I think its just an extra check that the GUI does.
I think we're missing two pieces before this can take off. 

First of all we need it to work in the gui.  If people can only take one side of the bet without using the cli wallet then adoption won't happen. 

Secondly we need a better decentralized system of determining winnerss.

Stealth would also be a good thing.
I think (but haven't tested yet) .. that the final decision can be *delegated* to a SET of feed producers that publish the outcome ..
But I need to test this first ..

I am sure that a multi sig account could publish the outcome.  Who should do this though.  I don't think it should be the committee.  I am willing to play risk a test, but I wouldn't be willing to run prediction markets as a business. 

Is there anyone out there that lives in a better jurisdiction to manage prediction markets?

If we can get the GUI solved I think we could start marketing our markets.  If we could find a good way of deciding the result we could be unstoppable.