Delphi Digital, Arrington Capital, Gnosis and Flow Ventures Invest $3.5 million in Azuro

Decentralized Betting Protocol receives Investment from Institutions

Azuro, a decentralized betting protocol, raised $3.5 million in a seed round from Gnosis, Flow Ventures, Polymorphic Capital, Ethereal Ventures, Delhi Digital, Arrington Capital, and Meta Cartel Ventures. The investment comes in the light of the increase in trading of prediction instruments such as derivatives on ByBit, Binance and FTX. Azuro is a decentralized betting protocol that uses smart contracts to provide an innovative solution for liquidity supply and distribution, which uses pooled liquidity to scale prediction markets, similar to how pooled liquidity grew lending protocols like Aave or Compound and DEXs like Uniswap. Consequently, as betting becomes more transparent and trustworthy, the breadth of betting events, markets, and user experience remains unrivalled.

The DAO will oversee the development of the betting protocol, its ecosystem economics, treasury administration, and dispute resolution, among other things. Decentralizing the betting sector and its administration can result in a more equitable atmosphere, removing the well-deserved stigma that betting holds in countries and communities.

Understanding Peer-to-Peer Betting

Earlier, the peer-to-peer architecture of prediction markets prevents effective liquidity allocation. Liquidity providers must manually launch markets, set odds, and seed liquidity for each market they create on prediction markets. The liquidity is thus market-specific, implying that the LP bears betting risk associated with that betting market. All of this is due to the enormous lift that LPs are required to provide, and as a consequence, there is little liquidity and hence little betting. Furthermore, prediction markets are inefficient for bets with three or more outcomes. Most people are stuck with YES/NO marketplaces, which are woefully inadequate, particularly in sports. Another example of a lack of product depth is an “accumulator,” one of the most common bets (and the most popular among casual players). Bettors who put numerous bets on the same slip will get a substantially higher potential payout if all of their bets are successful.

Instead of employing various pools that are event and market-specific, core liquidity is provided via a single pool. Liquidity providers are not needed to build markets manually and are not subject to risk particular to betting markets. Instead, the risk is dispersed throughout all betting markets on the protocol, significantly reducing risk for the LPs. For LPs, the procedure is standard DeFi – no human effort is required, and no special knowledge is necessary to supply liquidity. The yield on the protocol for LPs, on the other hand, is completely unrelated to the status of DeFi or financial markets in general. Yield is provided by the Liquidity Pool’s profitability, which is earned by betting, allowing liquidity providers and farmers in DeFi to become comparable to the “house” in the classic bookmaking model.

The Rise of Online Sports Betting Industry & Crypto

In 1996, roughly 15 companies offered sports betting, which was the start of online sports betting. It is now one of the most popular pastimes on the planet, and with the advancement of technology, it has never been simpler. Despite more localized control, the sector has expanded dramatically and is worth more than $100 billion each year. Like the United States, large economies have long forbidden sports betting, but in 2018, the US chose to reconsider its position.

This resulted in a massive increase in sports betting income, with the United States alone taking in $1.5 billion in 2020 — mid-pandemic, and with just a few states participating. Many states have enacted sports betting laws as of 2022. Despite strict regulation and a high barrier to entry, the number of online bookies is increasing year after year.

By 2028, the betting industry is expected to be worth $140 billion. However, significant innovations have only been related to broader technological leaps in its more than 20 years online — the introduction of smartphones led to mobile betting, which fueled dramatic growth; a few new forms of betting emerged, such as eSports and crypto-based gambling, which has been growing rapidly with innovations, such as bet cashouts and bonuses paid in crypto to expand the industry.

Don’t forget to like this story!