Author Topic: Simple Binary Prediction Market Discussion  (Read 24580 times)

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Offline Empirical1.2

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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=433086.0
Predictious - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=264443.0

This 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.




« Last Edit: February 11, 2015, 05:47:55 pm by Empirical1.2 »
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Offline dna_gym

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I agree to toast. Prediction markets are a WHOLE NEW THING after Bitcoin's decentralized currency.
PMs will actually give utility to society, this is a big difference.

p.s. but please make the original product first as we don't know the uncertainties of PMs.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2015, 05:28:31 pm by dna_gym »

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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...

Offline hpenvy2

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Prediction markets are extremely important and we will regret not being the first

 +5%  +5%

With BitUSD, we are in a great position lead this market.  Toast, can you please comment on the magic 1.0 designation.  I know you've talked about it before.

Offline toast

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Prediction markets are extremely important and we will regret not being the first
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Offline speedy

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That is because your prediction is exposed to BTC price volatility.

Really? Bitcoiners are used to dealing with the volatility. Whether their cost frame of reference is BitUSD or BTC, it doesnt change the fact that the only thing Bitcoiners really want to speculate on is the price, they dont care about the elections or whatever (much).

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. 

The same thing can be said about Bitfinex - they even say on their frontpage that they are in Beta, yet they hold millions of $ in deposits. But they have a killer feature that everyone wants which is to trade BTC with leverage. This is what we should be going after next.

Offline kokojie

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Offline Empirical1.2

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There needs to be a vote of some kind before core development on this stuff begins. Shareholders need a say in whether it is appropriate to begin development of new features before 1.0 is even done.

I'm keen for 1.0 too. It depends who's doing a lot of the background work. Bytemaster for example is not an employee who works for the shareholders so I don't think shareholders/marketing get to (or should) lead what he works on but they can certainly strongly influence it.

I haven't looked into prediction markets enough to be able to discern their immediate value personally.
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Offline Bitcoinfan

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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

« Last Edit: February 11, 2015, 03:25:09 pm by Bitcoinfan »

Offline sschechter

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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.

 +5% Multi tabbed markets will bring much greater trading volume than a prediction market
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Offline bytemaster

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.

That is because your prediction is exposed to BTC price volatility.
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Offline speedy

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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.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2015, 03:05:03 pm by speedy »

Offline Rune

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There needs to be a vote of some kind before core development on this stuff begins. Shareholders need a say in whether it is appropriate to begin development of new features before 1.0 is even done.

Offline Stan

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I understand the market opportunity for prediction markets, but are they really a common good or service that the SuperDAC should be producing? Shouldn't this sort of thing be developed by entrepreneurs building within the BitShares environment, rather than clogging the BitShares block-chain with data that will never be useful for most businesses?

Confused on the purpose of the SuperDAC....

SuperDAC provides common services (like BitAssets) that support many business models.

We build support for implementing model types and sometimes add demo applications to stimulate the thinking of others. 

Ideally, we want others to be able to build business store fronts based on those features without needing to be DAC devs themselves.

But we are also open to DAC devs adding directly to the toolkit.

Right now we are looking to add features that will attract new demographics and give them a reason to learn about our BitAssets.

Bottom line.  Whatever it takes.  We are selling transactions.  More demand for those transactions means more demand for BTS.

:)


« Last Edit: February 11, 2015, 04:27:38 am by Stan »
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Offline starspirit

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I understand the market opportunity for prediction markets, but are they really a common good or service that the SuperDAC should be producing? Shouldn't this sort of thing be developed by entrepreneurs building within the BitShares environment, rather than clogging the BitShares block-chain with data that will never be useful for most businesses?

Confused on the purpose of the SuperDAC....