OpenPredict speculates virtually on any asset utilizing liquid options. These assets could be traditional assets like gold, oil, stocks, etc., with minimal liquidity or without an order book. Liquidity refers to how quickly a stock gets sold without affecting the market price. OpenPredict seeks to work by assigning speculative assets a liquid value that can be tradable on any decentralized marketplace. To power an unlimited number of speculations, OpenPredict aims to use blockchain technology. 

As the litepaper of OpenPredict states, this protocol aims to solve the problems of a traditional system wherein the liquidity was limited because the contracts used to be isolated within the exchange where it was created. The introduction of synthetic assets, also known as synths, in the form of a Liquid Options contract helped solve this problem.

OpenPredict aims to allow the formation of synthetic assets. Synthetic assets have direct exposure to an asset without being backed by it. Anyone can mint synths to speculate the future price of an asset through an easy-to-use UI and zero coding. Minting is the process in blockchain to validate information, create a new block, and record this information into the blockchain. 

The focus is on risk hedging for traders against price volatility and highly leveraged trading for assets with limited order book depth. OpenPredict protocol aims to mint synthetic assets on-chain that shows the price of a particular cryptocurrency or traditional asset.

OPT token is the fuel behind the OpenPredict protocol. OPT is supply capped; hence, every time OPT is used to pay for minting and escrow fees, a strategic plan is made to remove tokens from circulation via token burn. An escrow is a legal arrangement wherein the third party holds money or property temporarily until a particular condition is met. Traders receive a discounted fee on minting synths. Cryptocurrency burning is when a fraction of tokens are sent to a wallet with no private key. This means the tokens are lost forever. Tokens are usually burned to reduce availability and increase market value.

OPT uses a tri-smart contract mechanism that seeks to simultaneously execute three smart contracts for each speculation:

Tadhg Riordan is the name behind the development of the OpenPredict protocol. He is a software developer with a master's degree in computer science and several years of expertise in the crypto space. Thomas Kal manages micro teams and closes deals in the OPT protocol. He had his digital marketing agency, which helped local business owners gain a competitive edge in this dynamic digital landscape.