Robinos is a tokenized prediction market platform that will launch on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Polygon in Q4 2021. The decision to integrate the blockchain follows a long tradition taken by other industries before them. However, the primary difference between Robinos approach and its predecessors is their acknowledgment of the critical role of ordinary, often non-tech savvy users. Admittedly, gamers and network participation care less about the underlying mechanics. Instead, they want a smooth, responsive system with an easy-to-use, interactive user interface.

The prediction platform plans to leverage the distribution and security of Polygon and BSC to launch a platform that they say will level the field, tokenizing sporting and entertainment events and enabling users to profit. Robinos is tokenizing events and building an options market where decisions can be made quickly without familiarizing oneself with details of the financial markets or learning special tools for price predictions. Facilitating this will be Robinos' attention to detail and release of a portal for sports trading, eliminating the need for sportsbooks, which in turn leads to more flexibility.

Today, we are privileged to sit down with the Founder of Robinos. He shall answer several questions ranging from the prediction markets' state, the blockchain's disruption, and the present status.

Blockchain and the Predictions market, is this a perfect match?

Yes, of course! It might not be seen as important to the regular consumer, but the immutability nature of blockchain alone will be extremely important towards the future of the predictions market. There wouldn’t be a central authority sitting in the middle, so no rejections or restrictions will be in place.

The sports betting market is a multi-billion market. By Statista's estimate, the industry was worth $203 billion by 2020. What are they doing wrong?

I wouldn’t say there is anything wrong with the sports betting market. But I think there is a new addressable market that we can potentially look into as retail investors grow over the last 2 years. So more people staying at home exploring ways to increase their income during the various lockdowns across the world in 2020. Gambling and trading are 2 very different activities, but more often than not, there is an overlap over there. And that is where Robinos thrive!

What is Robinos doing differently?
As compared to our competitors, we’re working on tokenized options for every prediction event that we cover in Robinos Prediction Platform.

So basically, you’ll be able to purchase tokens representing different teams in the prediction events, maybe like how you’re placing a bet on a sportsbook. So if you’re a fan of the LA Lakers(and feel that they can win the league, or even qualify for playoffs), you’ll be able to purchase the represented tokens of LA Lakers on Robinos Prediction. 

Once the tokens are purchased, buyers will be able to trade those tokens as the season goes. So, imagine your team going through a 7-game winning streak, the demand for your team’s token would increase, and thus a price hike to be expected. That’s when you’re able to decide if you want to sell early for a profit considering the price hike, or just hold on for a bit and see how things go. 

And inevitably, we’re at the end of the season now. Your team did not win the championship but ended up in 3rd place. Everything is set in stone now. That usually means you’re not getting your money back and you just have to strike it as a loss, but in Robinos, you’ll be able to exchange your team tokens for a reward, because your team ended up in 3rd place. Let’s face it, this doesn’t happen in many places, where in many cases, there can only be 1 winner and that’s it.

So in Robinos, we’re providing options for our users in different stages of the game. We’re also stretching out the events across the season, so, a bad game from your team doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. And of course, at the end of the season, a well-performed team can allow the backers to be rewarded as well.

Why now? Isn't the market too saturated with prediction market dApps?
There can be many different kinds of prediction market products out there, but it doesn’t mean users will be using one and avoiding another. I think Robinos provide a new dimension to prediction markets. The common perception of prediction markets focuses on the result of the event and making sure that participants are rewarded according to the choices made on pre-event. But in Robinos, we’re allowing our users to enjoy the process in between as well, and also providing an opportunity for traders to take advantage of situations that can potentially benefit them later in the event, or even at the end of the event.

Robinos is focusing on everyday sports and entertainment fans. What made you focus on the sector and not any other?
Since 2020, we have had an influx of retail traders who’re looking into the stocks market and cryptocurrencies trading. Cryptocurrency adoption among retail investors increased by over 800% from mid-2020 to mid-2021, and retail investors made up 25% of the market by August 2020, growing from 17% earlier in the year. 

Trading is a glory profession, many aspire to be one, but lose a lot of money trying to be one at the same time. And let’s not forget the experience and learning curve required for a retail trader to start making an income off trading consistently.

By providing an avenue for retail traders to trade on events that they’re familiar with, retail traders wouldn’t need to go through the tough learning curves, and hopefully, they’ll be able to enjoy their weekend games and make some profits on their knowledge that they already possess in those entertainment events. Even researching entertainment events would be a joy as compared to reading financial reports. 

How is Robinos Differentiated from a Sportsbook?
I feel that the dynamic is changing these days, as younger crowds find trading to be something legitimate and career fitting, while gambling is more of an entertainment. Sportsbook provides gambling activities, which usually means you either win or lose and have lesser control over the money wagered.

In Robinos, we’re not positioned as a sportsbook, but more of a project that provides decentralized trading of options. Also, as mentioned previously, we reward the well-performed teams as well, and not solely the winners of a tournament. Bearing in mind that we’re catering our services to traders and not gamblers, trading during the season will be a big component of Robinos, as traders will know when to cut their losses and chase their gains.

How would Robinos describe a Representative token to an ordinary sports fan that isn't interested in technology but wants to profit?
Represented Tokens are created for sports fans. No clubs are too big, and no teams are too small! Rewarding up to 40% of the available standings, 8 out of 20 teams in a 20-team league season can potentially be rewarded at the end of the season.

If you’re a fan of a small team as compared to the goliaths in the league, and when your team performs well and is placed on the 7th or 8th, you will be rewarded, and rewarded heavily for your team’s performance!

Is your selection of Polygon and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) strategic? Why not Ethereum considering its infrastructure and mature ecosystem?
Yes, that’s right! EVMs are popping out everywhere these days, and many of them are well-received by the community due to the scalability and fees issue faced in Ethereum.

It will not be feasible to operate on Ethereum, especially for potential users who own many different represented tokens but in small amounts. So, bearing the fees in mind for our users, we’ve decided to start our operations on BSC and Polygon.

We’ll be looking into many other EVMs in the near future, which will include Ethereum for sure. Despite the situation improving for Ethereum with recent forks, more still needs to be done, and I do believe a fully upgraded Ethereum 2.0 will be the solution or even a highly feasible L2 solution provided by Polygon. 

Part of the problem in existing blockchain prediction markets dApp is the complex, hard-to-use interface. The result has seen low client onboarding. How do you plan to overcome this challenge?
As we all understand, blockchain is still in its early stages in terms of adoption. One advantage we have now is the fact that most are starting to accept the concept of tokens. Which makes a tokenized prediction platform a viable option that can be adopted by the masses.

Of course, the next part of the problem would be the frontend user interface. But with decentralized finance gaining traction the past year, UI development has improved greatly, which means it is going to be easier for users to interact with smart contracts to perform simple trading and buying.

Of course, we intend to partner up with different ventures, such as decentralized exchanges to leverage their trading capability. We’ll be looking at projects with interesting DEX concepts and user-friendly interfaces that we believe will be complimenting both Robinos and the partnered DEX in expanding further use-cases.

There have been multi-million hacks in recent times, with Poly Market's $600 million a scare. What are you doing to change this?
Unfortunately, events like these will not be going away anytime soon. I’ve been in cryptocurrency scenes since 2016, and Robinos isn’t my first crypto-based startup. We’ve seen some high-profile attacks such as the first-ever DAO on Ethereum, which led to Ethereum Classic being created.

Hackers find vulnerabilities in a complex smart contract and exploit them. As I mentioned, it won’t be going away as we push for innovation in smart contract developments. I guess that is the price we pay for innovation and decentralization

For Robinos, we try our best to use simple and pre-audited smart contracts such as those provided by OpenZappelin, and also existing products from established blockchain companies such as Gnosis Safe. Aside from that, we simplify as many processes as possible to avoid creating complex and ‘sexy’ smart contracts. The ‘sexy’ smart contracts will be the ones with the highest risk of exploitation, even with multiple audits. There are many complex developments that we’re putting on hold, and to be launched as we progress further with audits lined up. Smart contracts, especially the ones with fresh and ‘sexy’ concepts should be seriously audited. Aside from audits, from the architecture point of view, smart contracts should also be created in a way that, when exploited, damage can be reduced immediately and as much as possible to protect the users with an immediate interest in the project. 

Despite the negativity, I feel that the entire industry is progressing very well. And even with the recent incident involving $600 million, the attacker was not able to get away with it even if that was the intention. The community banded together, with Tether ‘blocking’ the USDT, and also the attacker getting doxxed within hours by the CEX that the attacker had interacted with previously. All we can do as project founders is to exercise extreme caution, and fully understand how our system works. We should never be too confident of ourselves, so audits and bug bounties will be important as a project progresses.