Michel Erler

Intro

Michel Erler is a developer with a background in design, interested in the decentralized web. He currently works as a UX developer at Parity Technologies.

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Writings

Playing Intelligence, MIT Journal of Design and Science

Current Work

Ante

Ante is a browser extension that compares web content with open markets on Augur and suggests the most relevant ones. Foreseeing a future in which participating in decentralized prediction markets is part of everyday life, it aims to make users find markets that are relevant for them as easy as possible.

Eventually users will be able to create markets on the fly. Ante will automatically suggest relevant tags and categories based on the site’s content.

Geospatial Prediction Markets

With the development of proof-of-location (as pursued by protocols like FOAM) there is the possibility to use location data on a blockchain as a resolution source; meaning that you can create markets on whether something happened at a certain location at a certain time.

Markets could incentivize or predict business development in a particular neighborhood. Will a gym open in xyz within a radius of 500m? If you figure out which neighborhood gets gentrified next — whether you like it or not — you can at least make some money with it by opening a market on the number of coffee shops within a certain range by a certain date.

A potential area making use of Dynamic Proof of Location are markets on supply chains, IoT and traffic. For example one can imagine a market like: How many Tesla Model 3 will leave the Fremont factory within Q3 2019? Users could also incentivize certain events. E.g. how many people will come to a political rally or a protest march or a street festival? The later would require all attendees to claim their location on a decentralized map and would ignore those who attend, but are not active users on a map like FOAM. However, it might be in an attendees’ interest to claim their position if they participated in a respective prediction market.

Furthermore, markets could be used to incentivize progress of the map itself. A question like “will there be 500 approved Points of Interests in Culver City, CA, on the FOAM map by August 31, 2019” gives a clear incentive for mappers and traders to add POIs to the map. Or, if you voted “No”, to challenge existing and newly added points in Culver City for the sake of quality assurance and spam laundering.

Contact

Get in touch via mail@michelerler.com.