Augur V2 launches tomorrow - I know many aren't that excited and thats fair tbh

but here's why I am

Predictions markets have always been one of the most theoretically useful applications of smart contracts. The key reason being regulatory arbitrage, aggressive regulation has prevented generalized prediction markets from proliferating, with intrade famously being shut down

specific verticals like sports betting and binary options have proliferated but have resulted in very opaque and fragmented markets. Most sports bets run through risk bearing bookies, leaving some settlement risk (if bookie blows out) and wide spreads

These markets are janky because of regulation, theres no reason all flow for Chelsea v Bayern shouldn't route through just a handful of exchanges. Augur fixes this because it is *not regulatable* the collateral does not have a blacklist and market resolution is decentralized

In Augur markets are resolved by an escalating staking game where the winning stake slashes the losing stakes, this game is amplified by the threat of a fork where holders must choose the version of the world they agree with

The ultimate goal of the dispute system is to economically align the future interests of Augur (highest possible open interest) and the REP price, forks and confusing resolutions are bad for Augur and REP protects against that

The amazing thing is that this worked in V1, the system didn't fork, the bastille and house markets were particularly exciting, Vitalik even participated in a few, in the end a few thousand markets were resolved 0 stand out as incorrectly resolved (Ive looked at every single one)

Ultimately this is Augurs state, a history of resolution precedents and a group of reporters who understand the system deeply and have been rewarded REP for doing so. Hardening the economic security of the system

V2 brings in free limit orders / cancelling, and allows for other forms of trading more natively (e.g. balancer / layer 2) which is key for market making on the platform, also dispute resolution is much faster (~1 day most of the time)

Gas fees are going to be high. Its possible that nobody really cares how decentralized Augur is. What I can say is that if you are trying to put down $10m on the election Augur will probably be the best exchange on earth to do that, which is pretty cool