Connext Ecosystem Deep Dive: Prode
A deep dive into Prode: What it is, a brief history, the future of cross-chain bets, and what led to the decision to integrate Connext
What is Prode?
Prode.eth is a decentralized and permissionless pool betting application that introduced a number of innovative features:
- Anyone can freely create a betting market (permissionless)
- Anyone can verify that market
- Anyone can bet on the results of the events in that market, or multiple markets.
- Anyone can provide the true event results to close a market
- Any owner of a winner-NFT will be able to claim rewards.
- Anyone can sponsor a market to increase its pool size (without having to participate in the bet).
A Brief History
Prode originated from the collaboration of three web3 developers who met through their close involvement with Kleros, a decentralized arbitration service.
During the much-anticipated Football World Cup of early 2022, they conceived the idea of facilitating bets on matches among friends, colloquially known as “prode” in Argentine slang, using a decentralized infrastructure that boasted no restrictions, accounts, KYC, or limitations.
Swiftly, they recognized the absence of a system that met all their desired criteria but realized they possessed the necessary tools to bring their vision to life. In August 2022, they devised their initial launch:
Within four months, they introduced an MVP just in time for the World Cup ⚽, and simultaneously realized that Prode had the potential to offer much more than initially conceived.
Why Prode?
Prode aims to decentralize betting platforms, and solve challenges inherent in traditional markets:
- It allows for an open, permissionless creation of any possible bet market, as long as this market allows for verification. No brokers or intermediaries needed.
- Because it is a fully decentralized platform, there is no single entity in charge of managing bets, funds, or the resolution of betting events. This means that no one can control results or choose to censor actors. Unlike other betting apps, Prode doesn’t rely on complex AMMs that require liquidity providers, since markets bootstrap themselves.
- Anyone can use it without the inconvenience of KYC requirements and credit card limitations, while maintaining anonymity and transparency.
The platform operates seamlessly with an elegant model using decentralized infrastructure, and a frontend hosted on decentralized servers (IPFS), open for use or hosting by anyone.
Let’s dive deeper!
How it works
Suppose you are an English football fan and want to bet on the result of the English Premier League 2022 on Prode. You hop on to Prode’s “Betting” section and click on ‘Place Bet’, on the English Premier League 2022 — Matchday 38 banner.
Immediately, you will see a list of addresses and their bets on the right hand side. At the top you can see some important Market parameters, such as how big the Base and Perfect Score Prizes are, together with the Price distribution:
In this scenario, the Pool has a size of 32 xDAI. Additionally, there is a Perfect Score Prize of 500 xDAI for users who successfully predict all winners. The Base Prize Distribution is 20% for 2nd place and 80% for 1st place. The entry fee for this Market is 3 xDAI or an equivalent amount.
Once the event starts, you will find the market listed in the “playing” section, where users can provide their answers and receive updates on the results that have been answered. Once the event concludes, the market will be moved to the “closed” section, where the complete set of results will be available.
How to determine what’s true?
How can one ensure the accuracy of published results in the pools? What safeguards are in place to prevent manipulation by malicious individuals, given that anyone can submit and validate answers?
Prode leverages existing decentralized and permissionless web3 tools, specifically Reality.eth and Kleros Curate, both of which are ultimately secured by the decentralized Kleros Courts.
To ensure the correctness of answers, Prode utilizes Reality.eth. This protocol verifies answers by requesting a deposit/bond from the answerer. Correct answers receive their bond back, plus a reward. If an answerer provides an incorrect response, another user can rectify the mistake by doubling the stake and claiming the stake of the initial malicious actor. If the conflict between answerers escalates, anyone can raise a dispute at Kleros to get a final resolution.
How to Create New Markets?
Users have the ability to become Market Creators without requiring permission, enabling them to establish new markets for placing bets. This means creating a new Smart Contract that acts as a pool for that market. Here, users will deposit their funds to begin their bet and receive an NFT representing their position.
When derivative bets?
One interesting use case for these NFTs is that they are also tradeable. Their value is tied to how much a user will be able to claim when winning. This creates a whole new and interesting derivatives market based on bet positions.
Access Prode from Any Chain with Connext
Prode’s Platform and markets primarily rely on Gnosis Chain, a blockchain that offers cost-effective deployment and usage, fast transaction processing, and a high level of decentralization.
However, Prode aims to provide its users with the freedom to bet from any blockchain without encountering the cumbersome user experience associated with bridging assets. To achieve this goal, they have successfully implemented Connext for seamless, secure, and reliable expansion across multiple networks.
You can see this immediately when betting.
For example, if I enter the “English Premier League — Matchday 37” market while connected with my wallet on Polygon, I’ll see the following sign:
That’s right! You can now place bets seamlessly while connected to any of the chains that Connext supports. Currently, Prode supports Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, BNB Chain, and Gnosis, with more chains on the horizon (stay tuned!). Thanks to Connext, there’s no longer a need to switch between different chains or go through the hassle of bridging assets to bet on Gnosis. The entire process has been streamlined into a single, almost magical, one-click experience. This is made possible through Prode’s utilization of Connext’s primitive called the xCall.
The xCall is a straightforward mechanism that empowers platforms to integrate Connext in a variety of ways. It allows for the seamless transfer of both data and funds across chains without requiring additional infrastructure.
Why Connext?
Koki from Prode said it best:
Integrating Connext into our platform offers several advantages that make the user experience easier and seamless. By using xCall, and specially the fast-path, we can effortlessly consolidate bets from various chains into a unified pool, bootstrapping the pool’s prizes. But most important, the Connext team follows the same principles as us: trustless, uncensored and decentralized apps with a clean user experience. The end-goal is to be able to abstract the user from the fact that we work on blockchain, and Connext is supporting us to make it possible.
Try out Prode’s dApp!
WhatsNext for DeFi’s Bets?
Prode’s mainly looking into ways of improving UX to become the best-in-game and attract the next million users. Some specific goals include:
- Integrating on/off-ramps
- Integrating a winner notification system
- Implementing exact-results betting (e.g., betting 2–1 on a football game, not just win/lose/draw/invalid)
- Allowing for custom betting amounts within a market
- Private markets for intra-community betting based on special NFTs
- Giving non-winner NFTs utility 👀
🪂Aaaand… It’s Airdrop time!
Prode is giving away 4 DAI in betting vouchers to holders of the 1st connext community call OAT! These will serve as credit to make bets across the platform. More info in this Tweet:
About Prode
Prode.eth is a decentralized and permissionless pool betting app that was launched in August 2022. Each Prode market is a type of parimutuel betting system that aggregates all the matches of given events, for example the World Cup group phase, in a betting pool and lets users predict every outcome for a chance to earn points and win the accumulated prize. To this day, Prode is still a unique product in the Web3 ecosystem.
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About Connext
Connext is a network for fast, trustless communication between chains and rollups. It is the only interoperability system of its type that does this cheaply and quickly without introducing any new trust assumptions. Connext is aimed at developers who are looking to build bridges and other natively cross-chain applications. To date, over $1.5b in transactions have crossed the network.
