A Bet on Decentralization: Azuro’s $358M in Sports Prediction Markets
Prediction markets is a multi-billion-dollar industry, yet it faces issues like lack of transparency and centralized control. Azuro addresses these challenges by leveraging blockchain technology to create a fair and decentralized prediction markets ecosystem. This report explores Azuro’s performance, strategic partnerships, and the impact of decentralization on the sports prediction markets industry.
Key Takeaways
- Azuro protocol supports 27 user-facing applications. Among these, 5 apps have generated their own revenue exceeding $100,000 to date, with the largest app earning over $2 million.
- The protocol has achieved a total predictions volume of $358 million with 27,387 unique users coming from Azuro-run applications.
- Azuro has processed a total of 4,830,948 transactions, with 416,432 transactions in the last month alone.
- Football (69.4%) and basketball (18.6%) dominate the sports prediction volumes, aligning with global sports prediction markets trends.
Table of Contents
1. What is Azuro?
Azuro is the on-chain predictions layer. It consists of modular tooling, oracle and liquidity solutions for EVM chains to host powerful prediction and gaming apps.With its unique infrastructure layer approach Azuro makes on-chain predictions and gaming portable and composable. It allows anyone to engage and monetize users by building dapps, integrations, and products quickly, permissionlessly and with zero upfront or running costs.
Azuro operates on EVM-compatible blockchains, providing the essential infrastructure for running its sophisticated smart contracts. It has already demonstrated its capabilities on Gnosis Chain and Polygon.
Traditional prediction markets platforms are often criticized for their opaque operations, susceptibility to manipulation, and the centralization of power, which can lead to unfair practices. Users frequently faced issues such as delayed payouts, limited betting options, and unfavorable odds. Azuro addresses these challenges by decentralizing the betting process, utilizing blockchain technology to ensure transparency, security, and fairness.
Azuro employs a peer-to-pool liquidity model, which provides a stable and scalable solution for managing bets and payouts. By aggregating liquidity from stakers, the protocol ensures sufficient capital to cover winning bets, thus eliminating the risk of delayed or defaulted payouts. This decentralized approach to liquidity management diversifies risk across all markets on the protocol and reduces the need for manual intervention by liquidity providers. This model supports the creation of a wider variety of prediction markets, guaranteeing counterparty liquidity, overcoming one of the key challenges of traditional prediction markets.
In summary, Azuro represents a significant advancement in the sports prediction markets industry, leveraging blockchain technology to create a more transparent, fair, and accessible prediction markets ecosystem.
2. Azuro Ecosystem Overview
The Azuro ecosystem is already supporting 27 applications, highlighting a rapid adoption and a diverse ecosystem of the protocol.
Azuro’s transaction and user metrics illustrate the protocol’s reach and engagement. The total transaction volume has reached $357 million, reflecting a high level of activity within the protocol. Azuro has generated a total revenue of $3.4 million from these transactions.
Azuro has processed a total of 4.8 million transactions, with 416,432 transactions occurring in the last month alone. The apps on top of Azuro has attracted 27,387 unique users, showcasing its broad user base.
Speaking of liquidity providers, Azuro currently has 4,525 individuals or entities contributing to its liquidity pools, ensuring sufficient liquidity for the prediction markets.
Furthermore, the total prediction volume on Azuro has reached $358 million. The protocol boasts an average take rate of 4.28%, indicating a healthy revenue model. Users on Azuro demonstrate significant engagement, with an average volume per user of $3,318 and an average bet value of $212 over the past six months. Additionally, the average number of bets per user stands at 25, showcasing consistent user activity.
The distribution of sports prediction volumes on Azuro reveals a significant concentration in specific sports, with football dominating at 69.4% of the total volume. Basketball follows, accounting for 18.6% of the predictions. Other sports, including tennis, ice hockey, American football, and various esports like Counter-Strike and Dota 2, constitute the remaining prediction volumes, each capturing a smaller share.
3. Latest updates of 2024
Work with Polygon
Recently, Azuro became the number one revenue-generating protocol on Polygon, topping household names like Curve & AAVE, and the number one Polygon USDT DeFi pool according to unsubsidized returns (sitting at ~20% after 14 months).
Polygon provides a suite of Ethereum scaling solutions, including PoS, AggLayer, CDK, and zkEVM. As of May 2024, Polygon PoS has seen significant user engagement with 8.7 million monthly active wallets, 3.7 million weekly active wallets, and 1.1 million daily active wallets—doubling its daily users over the last year. The blockchain also handled 3.8 million daily transactions, marking a 35% increase from the previous year. This surge in activity has positioned Polygon PoS as one of the top EVM chains by active wallets and transactions.
Partnership with Chilliz
Azuro has recently announced a strategic partnership with Chilliz, a leading blockchain provider for the sports and entertainment industries. Chilliz is best known for its fan engagement and rewards platform, Socios.com, which leverages blockchain technology to connect fans with their favorite sports teams. This partnership aims to integrate Azuro’s predictions market protocol with Chilliz’s extensive network of sports and entertainment properties, enhancing fan engagement through innovative prediction markets opportunities.
The collaboration between Azuro and Chilliz will allow users of the Socios.com platform to participate in decentralized sports prediction markets, utilizing Azuro’s fair and transparent prediction markets. This integration is expected to drive significant user growth for Azuro, as it taps into Chilliz’s existing user base of sports enthusiasts and fans.
Collaboration with deBridge
In another significant development, Azuro has partnered with deBridge, a cross-chain interoperability and liquidity transfer protocol. This collaboration aims to enhance Azuro’s cross-chain capabilities, enabling seamless integration with multiple blockchain networks. By leveraging deBridge’s technology, Azuro can facilitate liquidity transfers and cross-chain transactions, ensuring that users have access to a broader range of prediction markets and opportunities.
The partnership with deBridge is a strategic move to address the limitations of single-chain operations and enhance the overall scalability of the Azuro protocol. It allows Azuro to tap into the liquidity and user bases of various blockchain networks, providing a more robust and diversified prediction markets ecosystem.
New raising fund
Azuro has successfully closed a pre-launch funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $11M. This milestone was made possible by the support of leading investors like SevenX Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, and Arrington Capital, some of which have been backing Azuro since the very beginning, sharing its vision for more transparent and accessible prediction markets.
Since the last investment update in 2022, when Azuro secured $7.5M from a diverse group of 25 investors, the project has been on a growth journey. The mission to create the world’s de-facto on-chain predictions layer has led Azuro to support dozens of sports markets and games while fostering the creation of new decentralized applications and integrations. The latest funding will be utilized to further develop Azuro’s core protocol, improve user experience, and expand its market presence.
4. Conclusion
Prediction markets is a multi-billion-dollar industry that continues to grow, driven by the increasing popularity of sports and online betting. Yet, the traditional prediction markets is fraught with issues such as lack of transparency, centralized moderation, and limited access. Azuro stands as a viable solution to these common challenges.
Azuro offers easy and affordable access to businesses willing to participate in this sector, lowering entry barriers and reinforcing user rights. Their robust metrics, strategic partnerships, and strong financial backing underscore its potential to lead a so-needed prediction markets paradigm change.
