From Augur's death to Polymarket's explosive popularity: Predicting how the market will be 'straightened' Recently, Polymarket has undoubtedly become the traffic center of the cryptocurrency industry. And it's the kind of completely unreasonable traffic center. Some predictive topics, Can directly attract Elon Musk's likes and shares; Many tweets have tens of millions of views within 24 hours, It is no longer at the level of "self promotion" in the cryptocurrency industry. So now I increasingly feel that: The significance of Polymarket may have gone beyond "encryption" and "predictive markets" themselves. But to be honest, I have always had many doubts about its rise. I entered the cryptocurrency industry in 2016. At that time, the crypto world already had a prediction market. The project is called Augur, The token is REP. If you have experienced that era, remember: Augur is not a 'wild path', But it is being discussed as one of the ideal forms of decentralized finance. Price is probability The market is closer to the truth than experts Predicting the market is the most effective information aggregation tool These things that Polymarket is playing with as traffic engines today, August 2016 has already covered everything. But everyone saw the ending. In the last bull market, Augur basically exited the historical stage. And the most ironic thing is: 2021-2025 is the period when REP has fallen the hardest, But it is precisely the period when the prediction market is gradually coming to the forefront. typical: It's not that the direction was wrong, but that we didn't wait for the moment when we were 'allowed'. Many people simply attribute this matter to: Augur products are poor, Polymarket products are good. ” This is actually a very unrealistic explanation. The real difference is only one: The prediction market is endowed with completely different "identities" at different stages. In the era where Augur lived, the prediction market had only one identity: gambling No matter how high-end your packaging is, In the eyes of regulators, financial systems, and mainstream public opinion, predicting the market is: place a bet Uncertain outcome Winning or losing with money Translated to: Gambling. So Augur is facing a structural ceiling: It is impossible to obtain mainstream financial resources It is impossible to obtain long-term stable market making and liquidity It is even less likely to be discussed as a serious information tool It can only spin within the small circle of encryption idealism. It's not that it's wrong, But in that era, there was no need to predict that the market existed "on the table". The first prerequisite for the success of Polymarket and Kalshi is that the prediction market has been redefined This is the most crucial but least explicitly stated point. By 2024-2025, the official language for predicting the market has quietly changed: No longer emphasizing betting No longer using gambling to describe But they are called event contracts/information markets This is not a rhetorical escalation, But rather a change in regulatory context. Once the language changes, the identity changes. Predicting the market is no longer just a matter of 'betting results', But it is described as: Tools for hedging uncertainty Market expected price signals An event driven financial contract After completing this step, Resources are only beginning to enter systematically. Take another look at Kalshi The success of Kalshi is not because it is more radical, On the contrary, it is because it is extremely restrained. It's not about 'challenging regulation', But rather precisely embedding structures allowed by regulation: Accept CFTC supervision Legal framework for using event contracts Starting from low controversy and high frequency scenarios such as sports and macroeconomics The real watershed is this moment: Coinbase has launched a prediction market entry in the United States and explicitly stated that it only connects to Kalshi. This is not a traffic collaboration, This is an identity endorsement. It is equivalent to saying: Predicting the market is no longer about gambling, But it is a product that can be distributed by mainstream financial platforms. Augur didn't even have the qualifications to enter this discussion space back then. The success of Polymarket comes from another type of 'allowed' Polymarket is not following the path of compliance within the system, But rather the route of attention and public opinion front end. But it is also based on one premise: The prediction market is no longer considered illegal gambling by default. Otherwise, it will be difficult for you to explain: Why can it rapidly expand globally Why can it quickly build up liquidity when hotspots appear Why are exchanges, market makers, and cryptocurrency funds willing to cooperate in the long term Its product form is essentially a: Probability content that can be captured, forwarded, or used as evidence. When "probability" is accepted by society as a reasonable form of information expression, Predicting the market will naturally enter the public opinion arena. This also explains why you see: Some capital, including YZi Labs, It's not about betting on a single project, but about simultaneously laying out opinions http://Predict.fun 、 Probable, APRO and other different directions—— Essentially, it is about getting stuck in different ecological niches such as entrance, gameplay, structure, and infrastructure in a newly opened track. So looking back at Augur's failure, it becomes very clear It didn't do it wrong, But it was done too early. It was born in an era where the prediction market could only be gambling, But attempting to assume the role of 'information infrastructure'. And Polymarket and Kalshi, It emerged after the prediction market was renamed, repositioned, and reauthorized. Finally, returning to the fundamental issue Why was it gambling before, Now it has become a 'high-end new media'? It's not that the world suddenly became rational, But rather: When the original information system is no longer stable, One that can be priced, quantified A tool that can be tolerated by regulators, They will be pushed to the forefront. Predicting the market has just filled this gap.