Flux now enables users to create their own markets that bet on anything

Flux, a startup that was known to let people bet on the success of a company, now lets developers build their own apps to bet on any asset and event, ranging from derivatives to weather forecasts. 

The Germany-based firm previously released Flux Market, a platform that allows users to trade derivatives on startups’ future. Now, the company is opening up the protocol behind that platform to developers who want to build similar applications. 

“We are focusing fully on the protocol level, building the protocol that can now facilitate these types of apps like the Flux Market… Anyone can come either as a developer or a user and create a market on any asset or event,” said Flux CEO Peter Mitchell.  

Initially building its protocol on Ethereum. Flux soon migrated to NEAR Protocol, a blockchain that focuses on scalability, to cut transaction fees and boost the efficiency of its product. 

“We built derivatives on startups as a niche app… but then when we ran into so many problems building on Augur and Ethereum, we are now reinventing and recreating the prediction market protocol," said Mitchell.

Leasing out its protocol to app developers rather than running an app itself may help Flux dodge some competition in the prediction app space. Augur, Guesser, and Veil are all appealing to the same users as Flux Market, which the company says it will not continue to run. after the release of its protocol. However, it is also unclear what kind of apps would eventually make Flux's protocol offering catch on. 

“It's hard to say today what the killer use case of the protocol would be, but a lot of them are to do with trading and forecasting,” said Mitchell.