Glossary
A defined list of terms specific to Augur that are deep-linkable.
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Ask Order | An Ask Order is an Order indicating the desire of the Order Creator to sell Shares of one or more Outcomes. This is the opposite of a Bid Order. |
| Atto- (Prefix) | Atto- is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of 10^−18, or 0.000000000000000001. This prefix is used for a number of terms in Augur, including attoETH, attoREP, attotoken, etc. |
| Bid Order | A Bid Order is an Order indicating the desire of the Order Creator to buy Shares of one or more Outcomes. This is the opposite of an Ask Order. |
| Cash | Cash is an ERC-20 token that is used within Augur’s Solidity smart contracts and acts as a wrapper for ETH to facilitate some of Augur’s functionality. Users do not interact directly with Cash tokens in Augur. |
| Categorical Market | A categorical market can have up to 8 possible choices for answers, and the answers are defined by the market creator. Each potential answer has its own order book, so it is more complicated to trade. Note that Augur can only resolve one answer as the correct result. So if the question is worded in such a way that more than one answer is correct, the market should resolve as Invalid. Buying SHARES of a potential outcome is as straightforward as buying Yes in a Yes/No market, but selling SHARES of an outcome you do not own will actually result in you owning SHARES of all the other outcomes. In the event that a categorical market resolves as Invalid, every SHARE is worth 1 ETH divided by the number of outcomes. For example, if there were 8 outcomes, each SHARE would be worth 0.125 ETH each. |
| Child Universe | A Child Universe is a Universe created after a Market Forks. Child Universes have a Parent Universe, which is the Universe where the Forked Market resides. Locked Universes always have Child Universes because the Forking process causes the Universe containing the Forked Market to become Locked and creates the Child Universes. |
| Complete Set | A Complete Set is a collection of Shares in every Outcome. Complete Sets are created when the Creator and Filler of an Order both use currency to pay for the trade, as opposed to one or both parties using Shares to complete the Trade. When both parties use shares to complete a trade, then a Complete Set will be formed and Settled (destroyed). The cost in attoETH of a Complete Set for a particular Market is determined by the Number of Ticks for that Market. When Complete Sets are Settled, Settlement Fees are extracted from the value of the Complete Set and are paid proportionally by both parties. Therefore, users who get a larger payout from Settlement also pay a larger portion of the fees. The Settlement Fees extracted from Share Settlement go toward paying for the Reporting system, in the form of a Reporting Fee, and paying the Market Creator their set Creator Fee. |
| Creator Fee | A Creator Fee is a percentage fee, in ETH, that is collected by the Market Creator whenever Shares are Settled. It is set by the Market Creator when he or she creates a new Market. The Creator Fee must be between 0% and 50%, and it cannot be changed once it has been set. The Creator Fee and the Reporting Fee are both extracted at the same time whenever Shares are Settled. Shares can be Settled when a user sells a Complete Set or when the Market has been Finalized and a user wants to close an open Position. The Creator Fee is designed to incentivize users to make popular Markets as they stand to earn money if enough people trade on the Market. They can then recoup their Market creation cost and ideally turn a profit on posting interesting Markets. The Settlement Fees are discussed in more details in the Trading section of the documentation. |
| Crowdsourcer | Each Outcome of a Market has its own Crowdsourcer, which is a Solidity smart contract that keeps track of how much REP has been Staked on a particular Outcome during a given Fee Window. If users Stake enough REP on that Outcome to fill the Dispute Bond and Challenge the Tentative Outcome, that Outcome will become the new Tentative Outcome (and the Market will go through another Dispute Round), or the Market will Fork (if a Dispute Bond greater than the Fork Threshold is filled). If the Dispute Bond is successfully filled, and that Outcome becomes the Final Outcome for the Market, the users who Staked REP on that Outcome can get back 1.5x the amount of REP they originally Staked, once the Market is Finalized. If the Dispute Bond is successfully filled, but that Outcome does not become the Final Outcome for the Market, the users who Staked REP on that Outcome will forfeit all of the REP they Staked. If the Dispute Bond is not successfully filled, the users who Staked on that Outcome can redeem their REP once the Fee Window has elapsed. |
| Dapp | Short for "Decentralized Application", a term used to represent applications that use a blockchain in some way. |
| Decentralized Oracle | The heart of Augur is its Decentralized Oracle, which allows users and smart contracts to propose questions to Augur and discover accurate information about the real world (based on how REP holders have voted on Market Outcomes) without having to trust a single person, AI, or organization. Augur’s Oracle allows information to be migrated from the real world to a blockchain without relying on a centralized, trusted third party. |
| Designated Reporter | A Designated Reporter is a single Ethereum address designated to submit the Tentative Outcome for a Market during the Designated Reporting Phase. The Designated Reporter is set by the Market Creator during Market creation. All Markets must have a Designated Reporter. |
| Designated Reporter Stake | When a Designated Reporter submits a Report, they must put up an amount of REP on an Outcome that is equal to the Designated Reporter Stake. Note that this amount is calculated differently than the No-Show Bond. During the very first Fee Window after launch, the amount of the Designated Reporter Stake will be set at 0.35 REP. The amount of the Designated Reporter Stake is dynamically adjusted according to how many Designated Reports were incorrect (failed to concur with the Market’s Final Outcome) during the previous Fee Window. |
| Designated Reporting | Designated Reporting is the first and fastest way that a Market can be Reported on. One Ethereum address will be responsible for submitting a Tentative Outcome for the Market and will have 3 days to do so after a Market’s End Time, known as the Designated Reporting Phase. |
| Designated Reporting Phase | The Designated Reporting Phase lasts up to three (3) days and begins immediately following the End Time of a Market. During this time, the Designated Reporter is expected to Report a Tentative Outcome for the Market. When the Designated Reporter submits a Report, the Market will enter the Waiting for the Next Fee Window to Begin Phase. If the Designated Reporter fails to Report on the Market within the Designated Reporting Phase, then the Market goes to the Open Reporting Phase. When this happens, the Market Creator does not get refunded the No-Show Bond. Instead, the No-Show Bond goes toward covering the Stake of the First Public Reporter when they submit the First Public Report. |
| Dispute | Dispute is used to describe the act of a REP holder Staking REP on a Market Outcome other than the Tentative Outcome for that Market. This REP is sent to a Crowdsourcer and goes toward filling a Dispute Bond for that Outcome in order to Dispute or “challenge” the Tentative Outcome of a Market before it is Finalized. If the Dispute Bond is successfully filled, and that Outcome becomes the Final Outcome for the Market, the users who Staked REP on that Outcome can get back 1.5x the amount of REP they originally Staked, once the Market is Finalized. If the Dispute Bond is successfully filled, but that Outcome does not become the Final Outcome for the Market, the users who Staked REP on that Outcome will forfeit all of the REP they Staked. If the Dispute Bond is not successfully filled, the users who Staked on that Outcome can redeem their REP once the Fee Window has elapsed. |
| Dispute Bond | When a Market is in the Dispute Round Phase, users may Stake REP on an Outcome other than the Tentative Outcome if they believe the Tentative Outcome is incorrect. Doing so contributes to a Dispute Bond for that Outcome. Each Outcome other than the Tentative Outcome has its own Dispute Bond that can be filled. Dispute Bonds need not be paid in their entirety by a single user. Augur allows participants to Crowdsource the Dispute Bonds. Any user who sees an incorrect Tentative Outcome can dispute that Outcome by Staking some REP on an Outcome other than the Tentative Outcome. If, collectively, some Outcome (other than the Tentative Outcome) receives enough Dispute Stake to fill its Dispute Bond, the current Tentative Outcome will be successfully Challenged. For information about how Dispute Stake gets returned to users, refer to the Dispute Stake glossary entry. The Dispute Bond sizes are chosen this way to ensure a fix ROI of 50% for Reporters who successfully Dispute false outcomes. |
| Dispute Round | A Dispute Round is one 7-day round out of a maximum of 20 such rounds that can occur during the Dispute Round Phase and before a Fork occurs in a Market. During a Dispute Round, REP holders who do not agree that the Market’s Tentative Outcome is accurate can Stake REP on a different Outcome in an attempt to Challenge it. If the Challenge is successful, the Tentative Outcome will be changed to the Outcome that was Staked on, or the Market will Fork if a Dispute Bond greater than the Fork Threshold is filled. |
| Dispute Round Phase | The Dispute Round Phase is a seven (7) day window after a Market has been Reported on. During the Dispute Round Phase, REP holders who do not agree that the Market’s Tentative Outcome is accurate can Stake REP on a different Outcome in an attempt to Challenge it. If the Challenge is successful, the Tentative Outcome will be changed to the Outcome that was Staked on, or the Market will Fork if a Dispute Bond greater than the Fork Threshold is filled. With each Dispute Round that successfully Challenges the Tentative Outcome, the next Dispute Round will require an even higher Dispute Bond to Challenge the Tentative Outcome. For details on how the Dispute Bond is calculated, refer to the the Dispute Bond glossary entry. |
| Dispute Stake | When a Market is in the Dispute Round Phase, users can put up REP on any Outcome other than the Tenative Outcome. The amount of REP they put up goes toward filling the crowdsourced Dispute Bond, and can range from 1 attoREP to the amount still needed to fill the Dispute Bond. All unsuccesful Dispute Stake is returned to the original owners at the end of every Dispute Round. All successful Dispute Stake is applied to the Outcome it championed, and will remain there until the Market is Finalized (or until a Fork occurs in some other Augur Market). Once the Market is Finalized, all users who Staked on the Final Outcome during a Dispute Round will receive 1.5x the amount of REP they originally Staked. REP holders who staked on an Outcome other than the Final Outcome forfeit their REP. All Dispute Stake (whether successful or unsuccessful) will receive a portion of the Reporting Fee Pool from the current Fee Window in ETH. (This ETH comes from trading and winning Share redemption: fees are collected in ETH whenever a Complete Set is sold or winning Shares are redeemed and given to Fee Windows.) By design, the Dispute Bond sizes for each Dispute Round are chosen such that anyone who successfully Challenges an Outcome in favor of the Market’s Final Outcome is rewarded with a 50% ROI on their Dispute Stake. For details on how the Dispute Bond is calculated, refer to the Dispute Bond glossary entry. |
| Dispute Token | When a user Stakes REP in a Crowdsourcer, that Crowdsourcer will allocate an equal amount of Dispute Tokens to that user. Then, when the Crowdsourcer’s Market is Finalized, these Dispute Tokens are used by Augur’s smart contracts to determine the payout that user should receive. Dispute Tokens are only used internally by Augur, and users do not interact with them directly; however, they are implemented as ERC-20 tokens, so they potentially can be traded between users. (For example, a user might want to sell their Dispute Tokens to another user at a discounted price if a Market is being Disputed for a long time and the user wishes to cash out their Dispute Tokens before the Market is Finalized.) |
| ETH | Ethereum's cryptocurrency. It is used by Augur to pay for transaction gas costs, and in the current version of Augur (v1) it is also used to buy SHARES for trading on various outcomes of markets. |
| End Time | End Time is the date and time that a Market’s event will have come to pass and should be known (otherwise the market is Invalid). This is also known as the "Reporting Start Time". After this date and time has passed the Market will get Reported on and eventually Finalized. |
| Fee Token | Fee Tokens are not tokens that users interact with directly; however, they are used internally by Augur’s Solidity smart contracts to allow users to redeem REP Staked either in a First Public Report or in a Crowdsourcer. When a First Public Reporter submits a First Public Report in a given Fee Window, Augur creates an amount of Fee Tokens equal to the amount of REP they Staked and associates those Fee Tokens with the Ethereum address of the First Public Reporter. Similarly, when a user Stakes REP in a Crowdsourcer to Challenge a Tentative Outcome, Augur creates an amount of Fee Tokens equal to the amount of REP they Staked and associates those Fee Tokens with the Ethereum address of that user. Once the Fee Window is over, and a user redeems their Staked REP, Augur uses the amount of Fee Tokens associated their Ethereum address to determine what proportion of the Fee Window’s Reporting Fees (in ETH) to distribute to them. |
| Fee Window | Augur’s Reporting system runs on a cycle of consecutive 7-day long Fee Windows. Any fees collected by Augur during a given Fee Window are added to a Reporting Fee Pool for that Fee Window. The Reporting Fee Pool is used to reward REP holders who participate in Augur’s Reporting process. REP holders who Stake REP during a given Fee Window will receive an amount of fees from the Reporting Fee Pool that is proportionate to the amount of REP they Staked. In this way, all REP holders who participate during a Fee Window will receive a portion of the fees collected during that Window. Participation includes Designated or Open Reporting, Disputing an Outcome, or simply purchasing Participation Tokens directly. |
| Fill Order | Filling an Order is when a Filler provides what the Creator of the order is seeking in their Order. If a Filler only provides some of what the Creator wants then it’s known as a partial fill. If the Filler provides exactly what the Creator requests then it’s known as completely filling the order. |
| Final Outcome | A Final Outcome is a Tentative Outcome that is not Challenged through a Dispute Round Phase or is determined through a Fork. At this point, the Market becomes Finalized and moves to the Finalized Phase. A Market’s Final Outcome cannot be challenged or changed. |
| Finalized Market | A Finalized Market is a Market that has not had its Tentative Outcome Challenged through a Dispute Round Phase, or has gone through the Fork Phase. Its Tentative Outcome is now considered final, and the Market will allow Share holders to Settle their Shares with the Market once the Post-Finalization Waiting Period has elapsed. |
| Finalized Phase | This is the last phase a Market can be in, and it occurs once the Market has been Finalized. |
| First Public Report | When a Market’s Designated Reporter fails to submit a Designated Report, the Market moves to the Open Reporting Phase. When this happens, the No-Show Bond put up by the Market Creator can be used by any user to Stake REP on a Tentative Outcome. This Report is called the First Public Report. The First Public Reporter must pay the gas cost of submitting the First Public Reporter. |
| First Public Reporter | The First Public Reporter is any user who Stakes REP on a Tentative Outcome during the Open Reporting Phase. |
| First Public Reporter Stake | When a Market’s Designated Reporter fails to submit a Designated Report, and the First Public Reporter submits a Report instead, the No-Show Bond gets used to Stake on a Tentative Outcome. If that Tentative Outcome becomes the Final Outcome, the First Public Reporter will receive the No-Show Bond back. |
| Fork | A Fork occurs if the Tentative Outcome for a Market is Challenged with a Dispute Bond greater than the Fork Threshold. A Fork causes Augur to create multiple new Universes. Each new Universe is empty except for the Forked Market; they contain no markets or REP tokens. There will be a Universe created for each possible Outcome of the Market, including the Invalid Outcome, and the Markets will be Finalized on each Universe. REP holders will need to choose which Universe they want to migrate their REP tokens too. Migration is one-way and final. After sixty (60) days the Fork Period ends, and the Universe with the most REP migrated too it will allow traders to Settle Shares for the Forked Market and Reporting Fees will be paid out to Reporters for that Universe only. The original Universe that contained the Forked Market is known as the Parent Universe and is considered Locked. All of the new Universes created are known as Child Universes. Forking will result in a new REP Token contract belonging to each Child Universe spawned by the Fork. In the event of a Fork, all non-Forked Markets in each Child Universe will have their Tentative Outcome reset to the Outcome that was reported by the Initial Reporter, and any REP Staked on a Dispute Crowdsourcer in these Markets will be redeemable by the users who originally Staked that REP. These Markets will start off back in the Waiting for the Next Fee Window to Begin Phase. |
| Fork Period | The Fork Period, or Fork Phase, is period lasting a maximum of sixty (60) days once a Fork has begun. Once a majority of REP has been migrated to a specific Child Universe or sixty days have elapsed, the Market will become Finalized. |
| Fork Threshold | The Fork Threshold is the amount of REP that must be Staked on a Dispute Crowdsourcer in order to cause a Market to Fork. In Augur, if 2.5% of all existing REP is Staked on the Dispute Crowdsourcer of a Market, that Market will Fork. |
| Forked Market | A Forked Market is a Market whose Tentative Outcome is Challenged with a Dispute Bond greater than the Fork Threshold, thus causing a Fork to occur. A Fork will cause the creation of multiple Universes of Augur with the Forked Market having a different Final Outcome in each Universe. The Universe that contained the Forked Market originally will become a Locked Universe. |
| Genesis Universe | A Genesis Universe is a Universe that does not have a Parent Universe. At the launch of Augur, only a single Genesis Universe exists. However, users can create other Genesis Universes. |
| Initial Report | The Initial Report is simply the first Report placed on a Market. The Initial Report often will come from the Designated Reporter for the Market, which would immediately refund the No-Show Bond to the Market Creator. However, if the Designated Reporter fails to Report on the Market within the Designated Reporting Phase, then the Market goes to the Open Reporting Phase. When this happens, the Market Creator does not get refunded the No-Show Bond. Instead, the No-Show Bond goes toward covering the Stake of the First Public Reporter when they submit the First Public Report. This provides an incentive to submit the First Public Report, since the First Public Reporter stands to gain the No-Show Bond in REP if they Stake on the eventual Final Outcome. |
| Initial Reporter | The Initial Reporter is the person who submits the Initial Report on a Market. Generally, the Initial Reporter will be the Designated Reporter, however if the Designated Reporter fails to Report, then the Initial Reporter will become whoever submits the First Public Report during the Open Reporting Phase for this Market. |
| Invalid Outcome | A Market should be considered Invalid if any of the following are true: 1. The question is subjective in nature. 2. The Outcome was not known at Market End Time. 3. The title, details, End Time, resolution source, and Outcomes are in direct conflict with each other. 4. There are strong arguments for the Market resolving as multiple Outcomes. 5. The resolution source does not provide a readily available answer. 6. The resolution source provides different answers to different viewers. If the Outcome of a Market is Invalid, Reporters can Report its Tentative Outcome as Invalid. Additionally, if the Market is in a Dispute Round, users can Stake REP on Invalid as the Tentative Outcome, or if the Market has Forked, users can migrate their REP to the Child Universe where the Outcome is Invalid. Holders for each type of Share in the Market receive the same payout during Settlement. |
| Locked Universe | A Locked Universe is a Universe that had a Fork occur within it and no longer allows the creation of new Markets. All Markets within a Locked Universe remain tradable, as Markets never stop being tradable, even after Finalizing. REP holders within a Locked Universe are given a one-time and final option to migrate their REP to one of the new Universes created after a Fork locks a Market. There is no time constraint to how long a REP holder is allowed to wait to choose a Universe to migrate their REP to. |
| Market | A Market is created by users of Augur for a small fee. They are used to describe an upcoming event that people would presumably be interested in wagering on. They should also provide information on how to verify the Outcome of the event, the more specific the better. Each Market created on the Augur network will have an automatically managed Order Book, which will allow users to buy and sell Shares of different Outcomes of the Market. The Market Creator can set the Creator Fee for the Market, which, once set, cannot be changed, and will determine their cut of all Shares Settled on the Market. The Market Creator also needs to specify a Max Price and a Min Price as well as the Number of Ticks for the Market. There are three different Market types supported by Augur: Yes/No, Categorical, and Scalar. |
| Market Creator | A Market Creator is a user who created a Market. They are charged a small fee to make a new Market but can set the Creator Fee for Settlement of Shares on that Market. Market Creators are incentivized to create popular Markets so as to generate the most amount of Settlement Fees for themselves. Other information a Market requires is the actual question being posed, the type of Market (i.e., Yes/No, Categorical, or Scalar), the number of Outcomes, End Time, and a Topic. |
| Market Resolution | Market Resolution is the process of Finalizing a Market. Designated Reporting, Open Reporting, Dispute Rounds and Forks are all examples of attempts at Market Resolution. |
| No-Show Bond | The No-Show Bond is paid for using REP by the Market Creator during Market creation. If the Designated Reporter submits a Report during the Designated Reporting Phase, the Bond is refunded to the Market Creator. If the Designated Reporter fails to Report during the Designated Reporting Phase, then the No-Show Bond is applied as Stake on the Tentative Outcome Reported by the First Public Reporter. If the Tentative Outcome selected by the First Public Reporter becomes the Final Outcome of the Market, the First Public Reporter receives the No-Show Bond. If the Tentative Outcome selected by the First Public Reporter is Disputed and then still becomes the Final Outcome of the Market, the First Public Reporter receives the No-Show Bond plus an additional 50% of the Bond amount. This actually allows for someone to stake 0 REP for the First Public Report because the Bond is added to whatever is staked. This means someone without any REP has the potential to Report and if the Market is eventually Finalized the way that person Reported, then they can earn REP without having to purchase any. (Note that they will have to pay the gas cost to submit the Report.) |
| Open Interest | Open Interest is the value of all of the Complete Sets that exist in a Market, normalized to the denomination token for all of the Markets (which is currently ETH). |
| Open Order | An Open Order is an Order that is currently on the Order Book and has not been completely Filled. |
| Open Reporting | Open Reporting occurs if a Market’s Designated Reporter fails to submit a Designated Report and another user submits a First Public Report instead by Staking REP on an Outcome. |
| Open Reporting Phase | In the event that a Market’s Designated Reporter fails to submit a Designated Report, the Market moves to the Open Reporting Phase. When this happens, any user can submit a First Public Report by Staking REP on an Outcome. |
| Order | An Order can be thought of as the recorded interest of a user to execute a trade of some amount of Shares at a defined price point. Orders come in two types, Bid Orders and Ask Orders, which indicate an attempt to buy or sell respectively. The Creator of the Order will also need to escrow currency or Shares in order to provide their part of the trade. The information stored in an Order is as follows: the type of Order, the Market the Order is trading on, the Outcome the Order is concerned with buying or selling, the Order Creator’s address, the price per share, the amount of shares to trade, what block number the Order was created during, the amount of currency or Shares escrowed in the Order by the Order Creator for their part of the trade. |
| Order Book | The Order Book is the collection of all Open Orders currently available for a Market. Orders are placed on the Order Book by Order Creators and are Filled by Order Fillers. Orders are divided up by which type, or side, of Order they are: Bid or Ask. Orders are further divided up by Outcome. |
| Order Creator | An Order Creator is the person who places an Order on the Order Book. They escrow currency or Shares into their Order to buy or sell Shares of an Outcome of a Market. |
| Order Filler | An Order Filler either partially or fully Fills an Open Order on the Order Book. Order Fillers send currency or Shares to fill the Open Order and complete their part of the trade described in the Order. |
| Orphaned Order | Orders in Augur can sometimes become “orphaned”, meaning they do not get displayed in the Order Book, and do not get filled like non-Orphaned Orders when calling most of Augur’s API functions. This is an unintended behavior in Augur that can occur under the following scenario: Suppose one side of a Market’s Order Book is empty, and two Orders for the same price are created on that side of the Order Book. At this point, neither of these Orders has been orphaned, but that side of the Order Book is now in a state where Orders potentially can become orphaned. Any subsequent Orders created for that price on that side of the Order Book will cause all such Orders to become orphaned, except the oldest and newest. Creating an Order with a worse price on that side of the Order Book while still in that state will cause the previous Order with the same price to become orphaned. However, that side of the Order Book will no longer be in a state where Orders can be orphaned. Similarly, creating an Order with a better price on that side of the Order Book while still in that state will have the same effect, but without causing any other Orders to become orphaned. The Augur UI will alert the user when they have created an Orphaned Order and allow them to cancel it. |
| Outcome | An outcome is a potential result of a Market’s future event. For example, a Market with a question of “Will it rain anywhere in New York City on November 1st, 2032 as reported by www.weather.com?” would have three potential Outcomes: Yes, No, and Invalid. Invalid would be an option if the world blew up before November 1st, 2032 and there was no New York City or www.weather.com to verify the Market’s Outcome. More realistically, this can happen for Markets that have too vague of a question. A good example of a vague Market that would most likely be resolved as Invalid would be “Does God exist?”, as no one has a definitive answer. |
| Parent Universe | A Parent Universe is a Universe that has spawned Child Universes because a Fork had occurred on the Parent Universe and caused it to make new Universes. In other words, Locked Universes are Parent Universes to the Universes created due to the Fork. |
| Participation Token | At any time during a Fee Window, users can purchase Participation Tokens in exchange for REP. Once the Fee Window ends, users can redeem their Participation Tokens for a portion of the Reporting Fees (in Ether) that Augur collected during that Fee Window. The more Participation Tokens a user purchases, the bigger the portion of the Reporting Fees they will receive. Users are not required to purchase Participation Tokens, but their purpose is to incentivize users to be active on Augur in the event that they will be needed, such as when a Market Forks. |
| Position | A Position is the amount of Shares that are owned (a Long Position) or borrowed and then sold (a Short Position) by an individual. A Position can be profitable or unprofitable, depending on Market movements. Positions can be open or closed. An open Position means the Position holder currently own the Shares, whereas a closed position means they have redeemed their Shares and have cashed out for currency. Closing a Short Position means a trader is buying Shares of an Outcome they are short on, whereas closing a Long Position means they are selling the Shares they own. |
| REP | REP, also known as Reputation, Reputation Tokens, or REP Tokens, is the currency used by the Augur Decentralized Oracle system. REP is used to to pay the No-Show Bond when creating a Market, to Stake on an Outcome in the Designated Report or First Public Report of a Market, to Challenge a Tentative Outcome by Staking on a different Outcome when a Market is in the Dispute Round Phase, and to purchase Participation Tokens. |
| Report | A Report, or Reporting, is the Staking of REP on a particular Outcome in a Market that’s passed its End Time. Reporting as a term can be used to describe the act of submitting a Designated Report or First Public Report, or Challenging a Market’s Tentative Outcome by Staking REP on an Outcome other than the Tentative Outcome. |
| Reporter | A Reporter is a REP holder who Stakes REP on an Outcome of a Market that has an End Time that has passed. Reporters can include the Designated Reporter, First Public Reporter, or users who Challenge a Market’s Tentative Outcome by Staking REP on an Outcome other than the Tentative Outcome. |
| Reporting Fee | The Reporting Fee is used to help pay for Augur’s Decentralized Oracle system. When Shares are Settled (i.e., destroyed), before paying out to the Share holders, Augur will extract Settlement Fees in ETH. These Settlement Fees include the Creator Fee and the Reporting Fee. The Reporting Fee is a dynamic amount based on the price of REP and the value of the Open Interest across all of Augur’s Markets. Augur sets the Reporting Fee so as to target a REP market cap that is 7.5 times the value of the Open Interest across all of Augur’s markets. This means the Reporting Fee will go up if the market cap of REP is not sufficiently high (but will never be higher than 33.3%) and will go down if it is higher than this target. The Reporting Fee is sent to the Fee Window that contains the Market being traded on, and is later used to pay REP holders for engaging in Reporting. |
| Reporting Fee Pool | Any Reporting Fees (in ETH) collected during a Fee Window get added to a Reporting Fee Pool. At the end of the Fee Window, the Reporting Fee Pool is paid out to users in proportion to the number of REP they Staked during that Fee Window. In this way, all users who participate during a Fee Window will receive a portion of the Settlement Fees collected during that Window. Participation includes Designated or Open Reporting, Challenging an Outcome, or simply purchasing Participation Tokens directly. |
| Resolution Source | This is a market field that tells traders and reporters how the market should find its answer come reporting time. The field can either be blank to represent 'General Knowledge', or a URL to a specific web site. The best source to use depends on the type of market. Typically, General Knowledge should be used (since it provides redundancy) unless there is variation in the answer amongst different sources. A good example of this is cryptocurrency prices. Since they vary dramatically in different markets, using a specific resolution source is needed (otherwise the market has a high risk of resolving invalid, due to multiple answers being possible). |
| SHARE | A SHARE is the ownership of a portion of a Market’s Outcome’s value. A Complete Set of SHARES are created when both the Creator and Filler of an Order send ETH to the Market to complete an Order. SHARES are Settled (destroyed) when a Complete Set is sold back to the Market. |
| Scalar Market | These are the most complicated markets to understand, but provide the most flexibility in the number of potential outcomes and how they are paid out. In the other two market types, only the one true outcome is worth any ETH once the market is finalized and valid. All the other outcomes are worth nothing, but that is not true for scalar markets. Since these are the most complicated to understand, it is probably best to avoid this kind of market until you are more comfortable with Augur. An example of a Scalar Market would be “According to finance.yahoo.com, what will be the price of MSFT on January 3rd, 2020 at exactly 1:00pm EST?”. In this example market, potential answers might range from $0 to $500, because a lower and upper bound are required to be defined when the market is created. In addition, the market creator had to specify the precision for the market, which determines how many individual price points are available as choices between $0 and $500. A trader in this example would have to decide whether to go LONG (Buy) or SHORT (Sell) on this market, and at a specific price. The trader in a LONG position makes more money the higher the final result is above the specific price, and loses money if the final result is below the specific price. The opposite is true for the trader who took the SHORT position. In the case of Invalid, the final answer becomes the midpoint between the lower bound and upper bound. |
| Settlement | A trader can close their Position in one of two ways: by selling the Shares they hold to another trader in exchange for Ether, or by Settling their Shares with Augur’s smart contracts. Every Share in a Market comes into existence as part of a Complete Set when an amount of Ether equal to the Number of Ticks for that Market has been escrowed with Augur. To get that Ether out of escrow, traders must give Augur either a Complete Set, or — if the Market has Finalized — a Share of the winning Outcome. This exchange is referred to as Settlement. For example, consider a non-Finalized Market with possible Outcomes A and B. Suppose Alice has a Share of Outcome A that she wants to sell for 0.70 ETH and Bob has a Share of Outcome B that he wants to sell for 0.30 ETH. First, Augur matches these Orders and collects the A and B Shares from the participants. Then Augur gives 0.70 ETH (minus Settlement Fees) to Alice and 0.30 ETH (minus Settlement Fees) to Bob. As a second example, consider a Finalized Market whose winning Outcome is A. Alice has a Share of A and wants to cash it in. She sends her share of A to Augur and in return receives 1 ETH (minus Settlement Fees). The Settlement Fees, which include both the Creator Fee and the Reporting Fee, are only extracted during Settlement. |
| Settlement Fees | Settlement Fees are fees extracted when a Complete Set is Settled. It’s the combination of the Creator Fee and the Reporting Fee. |
| Tentative Outcome | The Tentative Outcome is the currently reported Outcome for a Market that has not been Finalized yet. In other words, it’s either the Outcome that the Designated Reporter or First Public Reporter has Staked REP on, or it’s the Outcome that had enough REP Staked on it in the last Dispute Round to Challenge the previous Tentative Outcome and make it the new Tentative Outcome. If a Market completes a Dispute Round without being Challenged, or if the Market passes through the Fork Phase, then the Market will become Finalized, and the Tentative Outcome will become a Final Outcome. |
| Universe | All Markets created on Augur belong to a Universe. Augur has only one Universe at launch (the Genesis Universe), but more can be created in the rare event of a Fork. The Universe in which a Fork occurs will become a Locked Universe and new Child Universes will be created, one for each Outcome of the Forked Market. Once a Fork Phase begins, REP holders can choose to migrate their REP to one of the new Child Universes. They don’t have to migrate, but Locked Universes do not allow the creation of new Markets, and therefore there will be no Markets to Report on in the future and no Fees to earn. All Child Universes can continue to operate after the Fork Phase ends. |
| Validity Bond | The Validity Bond is staked by the Market Creator during Market creation. The bond is paid in ETH and is refunded to the Market Creator if the Final Outcome of the Market is not Invalid. If the market does resolve as invalid, the bond goes to reporters in the Reporting Fee Pool. The Validity Bond is a dynamic amount based on the percentage of Markets in Augur that are being Finalized as Invalid. Augur targets having 1% of its Markets Finalized as Invalid. During the very first Fee Window after launch, the Validity Bond will be set at 0.01 ETH. Then, if more than 1% of the Finalized Markets in the previous Fee Window were Invalid, the Validity Bond will be increased. If less than 1% of the Finalized Markets in the previous Fee window were Invalid, then the Validity Bond will be decreased (but will never be lower than 0.01 ETH). |
| Winning Universe | When a Fork occurs, the Child Universe that has the most REP migrated to it by the end of the Fork Phase is the Winning Universe for that particular Fork. |
| Yes/No Market | This is the simplest kind of market, with only two possible choices for tradeable answers (Yes or No). In the default Augur UI, the No option and order book is hidden, to simplify these types of markets even further. That means you can only buy or sell SHARES of Yes. If you do happen to sell SHARES of Yes to someone else (and you don’t actually own any Yes SHARES), Augur will create a complete set of both Yes and No SHARES and give you the No SHARES. In the Augur UI, this will show up as a negative quantity of Yes. In the event that a yes/no market resolves as Invalid, each Yes or No share is worth 0.5 ETH each. Note that depending on the price you paid for that Yes or No share, it is possible that you can win or lose money on an Invalid result. This is planned to change in Augur version 2, where Invalid will become a tradeable outcome such that Yes or No shares will be worth 0 if the market resolves to Invalid. |