PredIQt Development Update: User-Generated Markets Are Coming!
User-Generated Markets
We are happy to announce that we have completed development on the next major phase of PredIQt — user-generated markets (UGMs). Now that development is complete, we’ll be spending a few days end-to-end testing the UGM functionality to debut on December 30th.
What are user-generated markets?
UGMs are markets that are created by users of PredIQt. In the beta phase of PredIQt, the development team created all of the markets on the platform. The long-term goal of PredIQt has always been to allow any user, anywhere in the world, to create a market on any topic. This will happen in phases, but the enabling of UGMs brings us one major step closer to this goal.
Users who stake and burn $IQ tokens will be able to propose markets for approval by a distributed multi-sig resolver. Approved markets will be added to the PredIQt platform. This means that any user of PredIQt will have the opportunity to create a market on any given topic, and also to participate in the reward structure that incentivizes market creators and resolvers.
How will UGMs function at this stage?
As we have mentioned before, we are building PredIQt in stages — it has continued to evolve from a closed beta project towards the eventual goal of a fully open-source, decentralized platform.
For the first release of UGMs, users will be able to propose markets for approval by the PredIQt multi-sig, a distributed oracle account operated by prominent BPs and proxies. This creates a double opt-in system that ensures that no EOS account will be specified as a resolver for any PredIQt market unless they explicitly approve it. This will prevent markets from going unresolved due to uninvolved resolvers.
How can users create markets?
We’ve built an entirely new user interface for market creation. This interface will allow users to propose markets directly through the existing PredIQt UI, and it will offer guidance and examples to help users create well-defined, resolvable markets.
In order to create a market, users must stake 20,000 $IQ tokens. If the market is approved, the users’s $IQ is burned. If the market is rejected by the resolver, 25% of the user’s $IQ is burned, and 75% is returned to the user. This serves as a mechanism to prevent spamming of the market system and to encourage users to propose sound markets. Users whose markets are approved then become entitled to the market creator fees that are paid by market participants upon the market’s conclusion.
Note: for more information about the PredIQt fee structure, see our last development update.
What is the next phase of UGMs?
Following this initial phase for UGMs, we will begin to introduce additional features such as referral rewards. Later on, we will open up UGM functionality such that any EOS account can be specified as a resolver. Users will still have to participate in the double opt-in system, but this will open up possibilities for new types of markets and novel oracle structures on PredIQt. This will also coincide with the debut of work we’ve been doing on a generalized, distributed, $IQ-based resolution system that PredIQt market creators can opt into. We’ll be releasing much more information on that work in 2020.
Additional Updates
User FAQ
We’ve created a detailed FAQ to help guide users through the process of understanding PredIQt, creating and participating in markets, and much more. We’ll be adding this as a permanent (and often updated) page on the website.
Much of the content of this FAQ is based on questions we’ve gotten from users like yourselves. We are always looking for feedback on the product, user suggestions, feature requests, or general questions. You can reach out to us anytime via Twitter or Telegram.
2020 Roadmap
Last week, we finalized our team’s internal roadmap for 2020. You can expect a lot of great things from PredIQt next year, including an awesome referral system, better documentation for developers, exciting partnerships, and much more!
We’ll be publishing a public version of our roadmap soon. Thus far, we’ve issued major PredIQt releases as soon as various features are ready. Next year, we’ll be moving to a more structured system set up around various major milestones, similar to how Block.one handles EOSIO releases. We’re excited to share with you our plans for the future of PredIQt!