Aver, a gambling and prediction market for Web3, has just just started its public beta on the Solana platform. After raising $7.5 million in a preliminary round earlier in 2022 and having “a productive closed-beta phase in June,” the product is now available to the general public. The idea is supported by “heavyweights” in the cryptocurrency and sports wagering industries, such as Jump, Susquehanna (SIG), and Mirana Ventures, among others.
According to recent reports, Aver is the foremost initiative “to create a Web3 exchange environment that challenges the responsiveness and advantages of Web2 betting systems including Betfair and Matchbook, while simultaneously allowing a way to solve some of the fundamental faults of Web2 exchanges.”
A representative of Aver provided the following explanation:
“Up up to this point, frameworks for cryptocurrency betting and prediction have been grouped into one among two categories: a centralized framework that supports cryptocurrency as a method of payment; or a costlier and inefficient ‘Automated Market Maker’ (AMM) method that causes huge loses to liquidity providers and paves way for pricing that is either unviable or unprofitable. Neither of these approaches is ideal.”
Liquidity providers, who adhere to the Automated Market Maker methodology, “are idle and either: (a) are subject to knowledgeable stream of traders or abrupt surges in price to their harm; or (b) need such enormous margins to solve this as to render the pricing outrageously unprofitable.”
The Aver team has “made progress in fixing this issue, and has put in place a comprehensive orderbook-powered alternative on the blockchain (the ‘protocol layer’), with the the whole procedure – from feeding orders to matching trading activities, addressing events, and paying out settlements – transpiring without dependence on any specific institution, centralized innovations, or third parties.”
Earlier efforts at creating betting markets on some other blockchains, including Ethereum, “have resulted in high ‘gas’ expenses and struggled from lengthy transaction times, causing unpleasant experience for the vast majority of consumers and unviable other than the scenario of high value wagers,” according to a recent report.
Liquidity “has been scant to non-existent” as a result of the expense of renewing quotations or offering “passive” liquidity during occasions characterized by high levels of volatility. Rather, Aver is based on Solana, which has “roughly 1/1000th of the transaction fees and computing capabilities that Ethereum has.” This makes Aver the foremost on-chain betting site that isn’t always feasible but also challenges the user-experience of Web2 networks.
The exchange is “completely non-custodial,” which means there is no such thing as “funds-at-rest” or “fund-lock-up“; this is a typical characteristic of Web2 systems as well as a source of user frustration. Partakers are not required “to send funds to an institution in order to take part, and capital does not have to remain unused in a provider’s account for participating – unutilized cash stay with the partaker at all instances, and winnings are instantaneously settled straightforwardly to player wallets – not to a gaming platform account.”
It is predicted that the fees collected by the covenant would amount to a far less sum than those collected by Web2 comparable. “Fees are imposed only when users succeed, at a rate ranging from only 0.5-2.0 percent of a trader’s earnings,” according to Aver’s terms and conditions. After functioning as a closed beta for the whole month of June 2022, the platform started operating as a public beta on July 1, 2022. Partakers will “require a funded Solana wallet” in order to connect with the platform. However, the initiative has plans to offer more means to lure more users from rest of the blockchains and to extend compatibility for non-cryptocurrency-natives in the forthcoming months.
“a decentralized, peer-to-peer gambling exchange based on the Solana blockchain” is what Aver describes itself as. This “facilitates trustless trade, settlement, and settlement of bets and forecasts — without dependence on any persons or third-parties,” according to the description of the feature.
