Augur, a decentralized prediction market that runs on the Ethereum blockchain, is expected to launch later this year.

Prediction markets allow users to purchase and sell shares in the outcome of an event. Harnessing the individual opinions on a larger scale could create a powerful forecasting tool. Augur opens the predictive market to the entire world, putting the forecasting power of the crowd to ultimate test. Users are rewarded for correctly predicting future events.

Augur’s ended its crowdsale drive last October and raised over $5.2 million. It placed the Augur Project among the most successful crowdfunding campaigns and as the best in the cryptocurrency space after Ethereum, at the time. The platform is currently running in beta, which was launched in March.

Earlier this month, Augur partnered with blockchain and data security firm Airbitz to deploy the Edge Security Platform, which will provide an easy and highly secure account creation process for Augur end-­users.

The Thiel Foundation recently announced the names of 29 new members who have been accepted into the 2016 class of Thiel Fellows, which included Augur co-founder and core developer Joey Krug. In an email response to EconoTimes, Krug shared his experience and more:

1. Congratulations on being named as Thiel Fellow. Did you expect to make it to the list? Can you please share your experience?

JK: Thanks!  No, I went to the Thiel Fellowship summit in the fall. They pick about 50 people working on cool projects or startups and you spend a weekend together: it's a really fun experience. Then I was invited back for the spring one and about a month or so after that I got a call from Blake [Masters]!  Anyone working on something interesting should apply, the summits are worth it regardless of if you get the fellowship.

2. Augur entered beta phase in March this year and is expected to launch later this year. Could you give us latest updates on the same?

JK: Our beta has four phases and the next should be launching in a few weeks!  Our contracts will enter the auditing process sometime in July.

3. Would you like to comment on the recent DAO hack and any changes you have made to your plans regarding your product development due after the event?

JK: We'll roll out our launch more gradually I think as a result of this.  We've always planned bug bounties and use send to limit reentry issues (although I found a bit of an issue with this and serpent which has since been fixed by Vitalik).

4. What other exciting announcements can we expect from you this year?

JK: We'll have some posts out about features that'll not be available at launch (i.e. Future features) and a release rollout plan particularly focused on security. So watch our blog at blog.augur.net for those!

You can watch Krug speaking about the project, reasons for choosing Ethereum and more in a video here.

We thank Joey for giving us his precious time and sharing details about Augur.