Prediction markets are cool, margin trading is great.
But not finishing what one have started is truly stupid and regrettable. 90% of the killer BTC apps is already developed by Bitshares. What is left to do is make this the killer app... pun intended as it will sucking 1/3 of the BTC market cap, while solving the 2 of the biggest weaknesses of bitcoin - it being traded with counterparty risk and its volatility.
What we need first is BTC wallet :
-with built in truly decentralized exchange.
-with truly no counterparty risk conversion of everybody's bitcoin to stable non volatile , blockchain-based asset of her choice - gold, euro, dollar. The true savings account as Stan used to say, that people keep their money up to seconds before they need to spend those funds.
Price of the project 250-300 man-hours.
and yes we will truly regret if we do not do it and jump on other pet projects that someone finds cooler or more interesting to their always seeking the next challenge minds...
I think the BTC wallet is one of the most popular projects atm on NullStreet and they seem to be really co-ordinating well around it. I think they will be able to find and get a developer/s elected to work on that.
I agree with Rune, plus:
If we're going to discuss adding more core features before/after 1.0, then margin trading is a much bigger market than prediction markets. If you want to find out how little Bitcoiners care about prediction markets, head over to predictious.com - its volume is tiny.
Centralized Exchange? Come on. Not a fair comparison at all. Predictious is subject to major counterparty and theft risk. After experiences with Bitstamp and Empty Goxx, no one is trusting them with their money.
Additional I'm not sure why we would be chasing old mature markets like margin trading, which is already highly standardized and doesn't beg for change. Prediction markets fields are currently underdeveloped, easier to implement ("I think"), and has tons more upside. Thus there are tremendous early mover advantages.
I've written here why Bitshares delegated selection is optimal for a prediction market. My basis is that it empowers coordination within a crowd/community in order to make effective decisions . Please critique if you think this is not of value proposition to Bitshares.
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=13865.msg180595#msg180595
I've briefly just looked at prediction markets and Predictious.com & fairlay.com seem to be the two main Bitcoin ones.
Both have been around for over a year but both have very little volume or Bitcointalk interest
Fairlay - Bitcointalk
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=433086.0Predictious -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=264443.0This in contrast to Bitcoin based gambling games which are massive (Up to 50% of all BTC transactions and $Billions in turnover on some sites.) despite BTC volatility and being based on risky centralised sites. (I know we can't offer that on BTS though.)
In the real world Betfair seems to be the largest. About a $2 Billion CAP, $4 Billion turnover and 7 million transactions a day. They charge a 2-5% commission. I assume BitShares could undercut that. However they also offer fixed odds sports betting and I don't know what % that contributes.
Intrade was also popular before it shut down & I think charged a monthly fee.
Hollywood Stock Exchange has about 2 million registered users despite being only for play money. (I would maybe consider approaching HSX they don't have a real money option atm, so this might be appealing to them and their user base.)
So it looks like there's ultimately a lucrative market and there's also value in being the first blockchain to offer prediction markets for sure. However it doesn't seem like they would be immediately popular.