An Omen of Things to Come: Future Updates
Omen has been picking up some steady momentum in the space of blockchain prediction markets. It currently has the highest volume live prediction market going on right now with “Will Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 launch before 2021?”. In addition, the first utilization of the Kleros court to settle a dispute over a market’s resolution is taking place. This is a hot debate for Omen, as users are debating over sources of truth. You can view both sides of the case here and here.
There is no question that Omen is a strong contender in the prediction markets lane of DeFi. But there are plenty more refinements to come. The developers working on Omen are hard at work improving the user experience and welfare with their upcoming updates.
Kleros Curate
Kleros Curate is a permissionless token curated registry which maintains a list of validated markets which users can both submit to, or challenge. You can read about it in-depth here. What this means for Omen’s prediction markets is that standards will be set and users will have guidance for participating in markets. The major UX issue of blockchain prediction markets is that users come across many invalid markets. You can see how this has been an issue for other prediction market platforms in the past. Omen addresses invalid markets through having community-issued badges of approval. Users will be able to see that markets are passed through a series of qualifications before participating. The bottom line is, platform governance will lend a competitive edge for Omen amongst prediction products in this space.
Batched Transactions
The Gnosis Safe Proxy Kit enables batched transactions, and through its use Omen will reduce the number of steps its users will have to take. This will make the user experience that much smoother when entering prediction markets. Suppose a user with ETH would like to enter a prediction market with WETH as the staking asset.This is a minor UX hurdle that many dApps do not account for. Once granted allowance by your wallet, Gnosis Safe Proxy Kit could enable the automated switch from ETH to WETH and vice versa, so that users who want to buy on the WETH market don’t have to wrap the ETH before doing so. The same would go for DAI and its variants (such as cDAI and CHAI). Creating markets will also be relieved of the extra step of granting permission of the respective digital asset to be staked. What this means is you will be able to create the prediction market with a single click. No more multiple Metamask windows popping up.
Liquidity Automation with Gelato
Liquidity providers will have an edge for providing on Omen as opposed to other prediction market platforms. Thanks to Gelato, LPs will have access to programmatic liquidity withdrawal (e.g. based on time). The conditions can be based on other onchain data points, such as price. So for example, withdrawal can be triggered if an outcome token hits a certain price. The idea spawning this came directly from Omen’s very own community on Twitter.
To bring back Gnosis Safe Proxy Kit, those who provide liquidity in certain digital assets, could have them converted to interest-bearing variants that earn interest on Compound. As an example, USDC in liquidity pools can be converted to cUSDC to earn COMP while earning 2% fees on users trading outcome tokens. This feature will be unique to Omen. You can view the proposal submitted to the DXdao here. One thing that may not get emphasized enough is that anyone can submit an awesome idea to the DXdao and get to work on it if it is ratified.
Kleros Incentive Program
Lastly, Kleros will be offering a bounty reward program that incentivizes liquidity providers to use the platform. This is specific to market creators who choose Kleros as their arbitrator (which is currently the only option), where they will earn a share of rewards in PNK. This will go on for 3 months, after which the DXdao will award a final bonus to the prediction market that they deem as the most impactful for Omen as a product. You will hear more information from Kleros in the coming weeks.
The DXdao has a lot of exciting things coming up that will widen the capabilities of Omen. There have been talks within the DXdao of launching their own incentive program to follow Kleros’s. As the blockchain community’s source of knowledge, public discourse, and financial instrumentation, Omen has a sure shot at being the premier prediction market application.
Follow
- Omen Prediction Markets
- Omen on Twitter
- Omen on Telegram
- DXdao on Twitter
- Ingalandia on Twitter
This article is for informational purposes only. Please seek independent legal and financial advice in your jurisdiction before making any investment decisions.
