Veil, a decentralized application that mostly interacts with Augur to help crypto users create and participate in prediction markets, is going away.
Prediction Markets Just One Mass Appeal for Crypto
The product itself that is. The company behind it will continue developing new products, and one thing that Veil leaves behind is the ability to easily create smart contracts on the Augur platform via a creation tool.
“[W]hile we’re sunsetting the Veil product, the Veil team and company will continue as is. We’re lucky enough to have great partners, and we have a number of projects we’ve been working on internally that we can’t wait to share with the community.”
That tool will be open source, along with everything else from Veil moving forward.
But the crypto startup is developing new projects, with new aims.
Prediction markets are seen as one of the many use-cases that blockchain can have an undeniably positive effect on.
In a prediction market, participants pool their prediction bet monies and take winnings based on the outcome of an external event. Any external event – including such controversial bets as whether President Trump will be assassinated.
Blockchain enables these controversial markets to stay open – and honest.
The Augur system employs “oracles,” users who earn reputation tokens by participating in ensuring that the correct result receives the reward from a market.
Veil Leaves Behind Open Source Legacy
? Anyone interested in crypto-based prediction markets should work with @0xProject to carry on the torch https://t.co/t4eqoLczZJ
— Veil (@veil) July 12, 2019
Veil urges everyone to close out their expired Veil markets and not open any new ones. While it’s technically possible to interact with the Veil smart contract once the user interface goes away, they would prefer everyone to handle their business before then.
“Since Veil is non-custodial, all of these steps can technically be taken anytime by interacting with the Veil smart contracts. However, we recommend taking these steps while the Veil UI is still available.”
Prediction markets are only one way that regular people might opt to interact with the blockchain. Veil confesses that they didn’t do enough to onboard everyday people, however, writing:
“Crypto as a user base is still early, and we didn’t make it easy enough for users without crypto or a wallet to get started.”
Other areas that people might make immediate use of crypto are in things like tipping and rewards points.
If your Uber driver accepts crypto tips, it’s infinitely safer than carrying around a wad of cash.
Value is really in the eyes of the recipient, after all. If the driver values the crypto, then it has intrinsic value.
Gambling Remains One of Crypto’s Largest Draws
To date, gambling has been one of the most common and persistent use cases of the blockchain.
In Tron, for example, a majority of all major decentralized applications are in one way or another geared toward gambling.
Many traditional Bitcoin casinos persist, but their model is one where you deposit and trust they’ll have it for you to withdraw.
Compared to on-chain betting, this is problematic. In on-chain gambling, you only have to commit your funds, and you never have to send them anywhere.
Instead, you assign your money to a smart contract, and either win more or lose what you bet.
For new users, this can all be extracted behind a user interface. The crypto user can place a wager on what he or she thinks the outcome will be.
Gambling’s dominance of the blockchain landscape is proof that this is only the beginning of the crypto epoch. It’s hard to think of an industry or area of modern life that couldn’t be impacted by some part of the blockchain revolution in the coming decades.