Developers of Augur (REP), a decentralized Ethereum-based prediction market platform, recently published a blog post in which they noted that “testing and finalizing” of the platform’s new codebase modifications for “calculating profit and loss” had been completed.

Over 1,700 Augur Markets Have Been Opened

Augur’s main development team, known as the Forecast Foundation, mentioned that they’d been working to complete “an initial implementation” that would allow Augur to “sync” with the platform’s blockchain “more quickly by importing database snapshots.”

Other updates to Augur’s software include redesigning the trading page and making changes to how smart contracts are issued. According to the Forecast Foundation, there are currently 1,724 Augur-related markets that have been created, with an open interest of $2,040,934.63 (appr. 13,451 ETH). The total value of cash contracts issued via Augur stands at $1,896,284.45 (appr. 12,498 ETH).

Forecast Foundation’s blog post also revealed that Veil, a 0x protocol-based update that makes “trading faster and cheaper”, will be released on Augur’s mainnet on January 15th, 2019. “Order creation and cancellation” can be handled off-chain when using Veil.

Veil Mainnet Upgrade To Make Trading More Efficient

Veil “pays gas to persist trades to Ethereum” and allows users to receive payments faster, the blog post update noted. Although Augur’s “decentralized oracle system” ensures markets are “resolved correctly” and in a trustless manner, the “finalization process” may take several weeks. In order to achieve faster transaction confirmation times, Veil “introduces a feature for supported markets” called “instant settlement.”

Veil’s instant settlement feature will allow users to “redeem [their] Augur shares for ETH as soon as the market expires.” Users may register now in order to sell their Augur shares to Veil “at the reported price rather than waiting for finalization in Augur.” However, trading (on Jan 15) using Veil will only be available on a “limited number of markets” including “cryptocurrency prices, hash rate and gas price derivatives, and the Academy Awards; on Veil, Veil Pro, or Veil API.”

Alex Sunnarborg, the founding partner at Tetras Capital, a New York-based cryptocurrency hedge fund, pointed out (via Twitter) that Augur’s metrics “showing ~$2m ‘total money at stake’ include markets that have already ended.”

Only “$100,000 At Stake” On Augur’s Markets, As Many Markets Have Ended

Sunnarborg explained: “If we exclude markets that have ended, there is <$100k total money at stake on Augur.”

As CryptoGlobe reported in November 2018, Circle Internet Financial’s research division had released a report which concluded that decentralized prediction markets are too “complex” and “confusing” for practical use.

Circle’s research report confirmed that Augur is the most active decentralized prediction markets platform, while also sharing platform usage statistics for smaller blockchain-based oracles such as Gnosis and Stox. 

According to DappRadar, Augur recorded an all-time high in volume of 2935 ETH (appr. $600,000) in November 2018. State of the DApps found there were an average of 66 daily active users on Aurgur and around 44 daily active users on Stox.