Airbitz and Augur partner in virtual trading predictions

San Diego based Airbitz Inc., a leading blockchain, and data security-company, recently announced a partnership with Augur, a decentralized Ethereum-based prediction market.

Do you think Hillary Clinton will win the presidency in November? Here is how Augur’s market works. The purchase price of a share is $1. Time and outcome will determine the rise and fall of the share price. Augur’s prediction markets provide dynamic predictive data – you can think of the current market price of any share in any market as an estimate of the probability of that outcome occurring in the real world. For example, a share trading at 64 cents has a 64% likelihood of happening.

The Augur website explains that the accuracy of prediction markets rests in the idea of the The Wisdom of the Crowd. This concept states that the average prediction made by a group is superior to that made by any of the individuals in that group. Markets are the perfect way to aggregate this collective wisdom – which is made up of all the information, analysis and opinion held by members of the group. With these individuals buying and selling shares in the outcome of real-world events, based on their personal knowledge and opinion, the market prices reach an equilibrium that reflects the view of the entire group.

“One of the biggest usability issues with decentralized apps at the moment is that there’s no good way to store private keys to a centralized server: Airbitz solves this problem.”
— – Joey Krug, Augur Core Developer, Forecast Foundation

The Airbitz Edge-Security platform will secure the Augur network by encrypting data on the user’s device before it touches a network server.

“We want Augur to be just like using a regular website from the user’s point of view,” states Jack Peterson, Augur Core Developer. “Our partnership with Airbitz is a big step towards this goal: users will have the option to use a more traditional accounts system, instead of having to manage their cryptographic keys manually.”

Paul Puey Co-founder/CEO Airbitz spoke enthusiastically about the future of Augur and Airbitz working together: “Call it a prediction, but when fully released, Augur will have the most seamless account creation, encryption, backup, and synchronization process in the industry, as well as close integration with Airbitz accounts. Augur has developed an industry disrupting product that may drastically reshape our financial markets. An empowering decentralized app like Augur helps round out the offering of decentralized currencies like Bitcoin. The Airbitz team is happy to be working with Augur to deliver our Edge Security platform to the Augur users.”

Augur has two huge events on June 7th and 8th. On both days, members of the Augur team will be at CNBC & Singularity U’s Exponential Finance Innovation Lab in New York City. The conference is one of the two biggest FinTech events of the year, and this will be Augur’s second year at the event. Last year’s response was so positive that it provided the first major push toward Augur’s hugely successful crowdsale.

“Augur’s presence and success at last year’s Exponential Finance conference gave us the fantastic opportunity to be one of the first projects to get invited back a second year to participate in the Innovation Lab,” said Tony Sakick, Director of Marketing Augur. Sakich and Augur Co-founder Joey Krug will discuss decentralized prediction markets on Ethereum at the event. “Attendees consist of some of the most influential and important leaders, analysts and investors in Fintech. The participation of other blockchain companies like BitWage and Code Valley in the Innovation Lab is a great indicator of technology’s growth in the Fintech space.”

InTrade founder Ron Bernstein will present: Past, Present & Future of Prediction Markets. Bernstein is best known as the Founder & CEO of InTrade.com, widely regarded as one of the most commercially successful prediction markets in history. His recent role was as the CEO of Tradesports, a fantasy sports prediction market platform. Sakick states, “Ron’s guidance and advice have been invaluable to the Augur team as there isn’t anyone who has been as successful as he has in building a prediction market platform.”

The Augur event is part of the Ethereum NYC Meetup on June 8th, and has already reached capacity. It’s believed to be the biggest Ethereum meetup in the US. Former