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The early prediction market’s fork will force inactive REP holders to migrate their tokens or lose access, testing the protocol\u2019s dispute system.\n<\/p>\n
Augur, one of the earliest decentralized prediction market protocols, is set to undergo what it is calling \u201ccrypto\u2019s first algorithmic fork,\u201d following a community effort to test the protocol’s built-in dispute system.<\/p>\n
Ethereum ecosystem developer and Augur contributor Micah Zoltu has collected 200,000 REP<\/a> \u2014 Augur\u2019s governance token \u2014 to fund the Augur v2 fork through a crowdsourcing contract, according<\/a> to an Oct. 24 X post from Augur\u2019s official account. <\/p>\n In Zoltu\u2019s blog post<\/a> describing the initiative, published in June, the collected REP will be used to trigger a fork of the Ethereum-based prediction market platform. The process mimics an attack on the protocol, which costs approximately 200,000 REP, with the end goal of filtering out passive REP holders, the post explains. Zoltu also notes that participants will lose their deposited REP in the process.<\/p>\n Amid news that the fork will go forward, REP surged more than 50% over the past week, reaching multi-month highs, per The Defiant\u2019s price tracking page. However, the token is still down over 99% from its 2016 all-time high above $340. <\/p>\n Once the fork is triggered, a 60-day migration window opens for holders to move their tokens to the version they believe reflects reality. Those who fail to migrate within that period will have their REP permanently stuck in the \u201cold universe.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking with The Defiant, Zoltu said that users \u201cdon’t have to take any action right now\u201d as the fork process hasn\u2019t begun yet.<\/p>\n \u201cThe old Augur UI doesn’t load properly anymore, so we are currently embarking on building some new bare-minimum UIs that will allow people to do things necessary to participate in the fork,\u201d Zoltu said, adding that this \u201cwill not be a full-featured prediction market UI, just enough so people can report, migrate, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Zoltu, the rollout will \u201ctentatively start next week and will take some time to ensure it is robust enough to handle people\u2019s money.\u201d<\/p>\n Once the code is written, audited, and deployed to mainnet, the team will create a market to kick off the dispute process, expected to last 12 to 20 weeks, followed by a two-month forking window. \u201cThe critical thing is that REP holders show up during that last 2 month window,\u201d Zoltu said.<\/p>\n In their June post, Zoltu said the goal of the crowdfunding campaign is to \u201cget the set of REP holders back down to the set of people who are actually paying attention.\u201d They described the effort as a way to \u201cfilter out\u201d inactive token holders and restore Augur\u2019s core principle that REP is an active, not passive, token.<\/p>\n The Lituus Foundation, which oversees ongoing Augur development, said it supports the idea of testing the system\u2019s economic security but won\u2019t take part in the fork itself. <\/p>\nMigration Timeline<\/strong><\/h2>\n
REP Not Meant for Passive Holding<\/strong><\/h2>\n