As many of you have heard, exchanges such as Poloniex, Kraken, and Shapeshift have now added Augur rep tokens to their lists of currencies to trade. I, myself am relatively new to crypto and had no idea what it was. The initial volume of trades and price was really high so I needed to figure out if it was really worth investing in. This is what i found on what Augur Reputation tokens are really about.
The most basic explanation one could give is that they are used for gambling. No, not like those dumb high/low or dice faucets you may have come across. This is much more real. A question is posed about an upcoming event of some sort, you place your bet on what you predict the outcome to be, and once finalized and results are in you either win or lose. Pretty simple. These prediction based questions as I understand can be about anything. An example that was given is predicting the weather on a certain date/location or who will win an election or Superbowl or World series.
Betting on such events in the US is banned/illegal, so being a decentralized platform in the crypto world is a perfect fit. Augur Rep tokens fill a niche that has potential to soar sky high if done correctly. There are only 11 million Rep tokens available and they say no more will be created.
Another Pro is that it uses the Ethereum blockchain. Although, some still are skeptical of Eth remembering the DAO..the white hat hacker..and the hard fork..the backing for Eth and the development is certainly one of the most solid.
The development team is working closely with Vitalik of Ethereum and other credible developers to ensure a good launch. The crowdsale to fund development piled up $5.3 million. Users holding Rep tokens help determine the results of a market created by submitting the real world result. The result submissions are compiled and final result given allowing for winners to get paid. Fees are set by whomever creates the market with slight restrictions as i understand it. If you post a dumb question with a clear result or lets say 98% certainty you wont be allowed to collect much of a fee from betters due to the question being that dumb and easy.
My fears for the Augur platform like usual lie in the whales. What if one was to be able to accumulate a huge portion of the 11 million tokens issued? Could they potentially do a sort of 51% attack? Creating a market with seemingly certain odds ..betting on the clear losing answer then using their reputation to submit false reports on the outcome? I'm sure the developers along with eth have considered this already but it's still a fear of mine.
In closing, the Augur platform has huge potential for success especially in sports betting where billions of dollars are "illegally" gambled in the US every year. This version is decentralized and exempt from legal action. As for the trading price on exchanges, obviously it's impossible to tell but their is an incentive to obtain and hold these so you can earn a % of the fees from reporting results on the platform so it will have its ups and downs but i dont see this token being one like ETC that started real strong then died. My personal thoughts as to a semi stable price for it is about the equivalent of Monero (XMR) unless it really takes off...if people really buy into it like i can really see happening..it could in all irony surpass the price of Eth whose blockchain it uses.