[Omen] Idea: Untradeable "toy money" token for Omen on xDai

dxDAO
1

My understanding is that an xDai port of Omen is planned, which will offer trading with much lower transaction fees. According to the xdai page, transactions can be conducted for much less than 1 cent.

If this goes ahead, I think it might be a good idea to create a “foresight” token which can only be used to interact with Omen markets. The MVP idea is that everyone can claim 100 foresight to start off. After that, the only way to earn extra foresight is by creating or betting on Omen markets. Because it’s otherwise untradeable, it should act like toy money instead of real money.

The reasons why I think this might be useful:

  1. There might be people interested in forecasting who are more interested in playing for “high scores” than risking actual money
  2. An untradeable token that can be obtained from making good predictions could function as a “proof of good judgement”, which might be valuable for many reasons down the track. This application would require research and development beyond the MVP
  3. My understanding is that participating in Omen as a market creator or trader might be in violation of gambling laws in a number of countries. The legal risk may deter some individuals or institutions who are otherwise interested in the utility of prediction markets from making use of it. Toy money tokens could be used in alternative models that might avoid some legal risk, such as “toy money tournaments with real money prizes” or simply paying people with high “foresight” balances to answer questions. Again, this application would require research and development beyond the MVP

While the MVP proposal only really offers a test of 1, I think it might be quite simple to implement, and if it is successful it might give some motivation to pursue applications 2 and 3.

Would it be particularly challenging to create a token that can be claimed by any wallet and can otherwise interact only with Omen markets on xDai? I have no experience developing in solidity or with the design of the Omen contract. If it’s likely to be very simple I could have a go at it as an introductory project.