The First Augur Assassination Markets Have Arrived

Pretty much everyone saw them coming, but it was no less disturbing when assassination markets actually began to appear on Augur, a decentralized protocol for betting on the outcomes of real-world events and that launched two weeks ago on ethereum.

The markets - which allow users to bet on the fates of prominent politicians, entrepreneurs and celebrities - in some cases explicitly specify assassination, as the quote above shows.

In addition to targeting individuals, some markets offer bets on whether mass shootings and terrorist attacks with certain minimum numbers of casualties will occur.

Since Augur consists of smart contracts on ethereum, a blockchain network that is not controlled by any single party, users from around the world can place bets on its prediction markets - without governments being able to stop them.

Long before the first assassination markets appeared, users on Augur community forums frequently discussed their eventual creation, as well as potential responses by the community and the authorities.

One response would be for Augur's "Reporters" - the users designated by market creators to determine the outcome of the event being wagered on - to step in and quash the markets.

"The Augur Reporter community has a powerful tool in their ability to mark a market as 'invalid,'" said Predictions.

Holders of Augur's "Reputation" or REP token could dispute the decision to call these markets invalid, Berckmans continued.

That opens the possibility that Augur could fork into two platforms, one - call it Augur Dark - that tolerates assassination markets, and one that doesn't.

The individuals facing the most immediate legal risks may be the users who created these assassination markets.