Azuro

Azuro operates as a decentralized, on-chain predictions layer, providing infrastructure and liquidity for developers to build prediction and gaming applications on EVM-compatible blockchains like Polygon and Gnosis Chain. Founded in 2021 by a team including Paruyr Shahbazyan, Rossen Yordanov, and Dmitry Globenko, the protocol was established to address transparency and liquidity challenges prevalent in traditional betting markets. Shahbazyan, with a background as a professional sports bettor and the founder of Bookmaker Ratings, an online media platform for the betting industry, was motivated by his experiences with the opaqueness of centralized bookmakers. Yordanov transitioned from a corporate role in online payments, where he led crypto development, to co-found Azuro, driven by a desire to work more deeply within the on-chain environment.

The company's business model is structured as a B2B protocol, offering modular tooling and oracle solutions that enable third parties to create and monetize user-facing applications without initial or ongoing costs. Revenue is generated from transaction fees within the ecosystem, boasting an average take rate of 4.28%. As of June 2024, the protocol had facilitated over $358 million in prediction volume across more than 4.8 million transactions, generating $3.4 million in total revenue. Azuro has secured $11 million in total funding from investors such as Fenbushi Capital, Hypersphere Ventures, Delphi Digital, and Gnosis.

Azuro's core technology revolves around a peer-to-pool liquidity model called the Liquidity Tree, which aggregates capital from liquidity providers (LPs) to ensure there is always a counterparty for bets, thus solving a critical liquidity problem in peer-to-peer prediction markets. LPs provide single-sided liquidity, typically in stablecoins, and in return, earn a yield based on the protocol's overall performance. All transactions are executed via smart contracts for transparency. Bets are represented as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which allows for features like parlays and cashouts, and opens up possibilities for secondary markets and gamification. For developers, Azuro provides a Software Development Kit (SDK) with pre-built web components to facilitate the creation of decentralized applications (dApps) on its protocol. Governance is handled by the AzuroDAO, which involves the community in key decisions.

Keywords: decentralized prediction market, on-chain betting, blockchain gaming, liquidity protocol, EVM-compatible, peer-to-pool liquidity, Liquidity Tree, smart contracts, AzuroDAO, Paruyr Shahbazyan, Rossen Yordanov, crypto betting, sports betting protocol, Web3 gaming, decentralized finance, NFT betting, prediction layer, oracle solutions, blockchain infrastructure, Gnosis, Polygon, dApp development