New Prediction Market And Derivatives Trading Platform Veil Launches on Ethereum

On Januar 16, co-founder and CEO at Veil, Paul Fletcher-Hill, announced in a blog post that the new peer-to-peer prediction market Veil has gone live on the Ethereum Mainnet.

Prediction Markets and Leveraged Crypto Trading

Veil describes itself as “a peer-to-peer trading platform for prediction markets and derivatives on Augur.” The platform provides users with the ability to bet on a wide variety of prediction markets on a peer-to-peer basis as well as trade a range of cryptoassets using leverage.

According to the company’s launch announcement on Medium, Veil users will now be able to buy and sell 5x leveraged cryptocurrencies, speculate on Ethereum’s gas price and hash rate, bet on who will win an academy award, and trade Mimblewimble’s new native token GRIN on the platform.

As part of the launch on the Ethereum Mainnet, Veil is only listing a select few markets. Moreover, the company intends to keep its listed markets limited to the “right markets.” Therefore, it has implemented a feature to lets users nominate an Augur market for the Veil platform, where users can input an Augur market ID for listing approval.

Veil charges a one percent fee on all trades and a one percent settlement fee for users who elect to use the Instant Settlement feature.

Prediction Markets for the Mainstream

In a previous announcement, Veil said that it “is designed to bring Augur mainstream.” All prediction markets found on Veil are represented as Augur markets on Ethereum. However, Veil has made two significant improvements to the Augur experience to make prediction markets more accessible to mainstream users.

Firstly, Veil is leveraging the 0x protocol to make trading faster and cheaper by reducing the number of interactions with the Ethereum blockchain. Trade cancellations, for example, happen off-chain.

Secondly, Veil provides instant settlement to ensure users get paid faster. Whereas Augur has a decentralized oracle system that ensures that prediction markets are correctly resolved, which can take up to several weeks, Veil has an Instant Settlement function that allows users to get paid out immediately.

Veil did not conduct an ICO to fund the development of its platform. Instead, the Cayman Islands-based company raised funds during a seed investment round from the likes of Paradigm. Sequoia Capital, and 1confirmation.