Waves Lets Users Bet on Spread of COVID-19 For Charity

Waves has launched a macabre campaign to purportedly raise money for COVID-19 relief. The platform has created a tokenized parimutuel betting pool where users can speculate on whether the global number of confirmed coronavirus cases has risen or fallen within a given week.

On April 3, Waves announced the ‘charity campaign,’ ostensibly in support of “organizations and funds in need of financial aid in fighting the global COVID-19 pandemic.”

Waves launches tokenized COVID-19 prediction market

Waves.Exchange users can now purchase ‘COVID-DWN’ or ‘COVID-UP’ tokens to speculate on whether the number of globally confirmed coronavirus cases increases or decreases within a seven day period.

Tokens are purchased in exchange for the stablecoin, Neutrino Dollar (USDN). All USDN used to purchase the tokens are then locked in escrow before ultimately being distributed to holders of the winning token at the end of each week.

The charitable component to the parimutuel pool is that “winners will be granted valuable prizes or can share their winnings for charity purposes,” and “all additional proceeds of the campaign will be donated to non-profit organizations.”

Data on the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases will be provided through oracles from the Data Repository by Johns Hopkins CSSE — which receives from the World Health Organization (WHO) in real-time.

Crypto developers leverage coronavirus as a marketing tool

While the crypto community has quickly created a plethora of engaging and meaningful initiatives in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a handful of actors have sought to invoke COVID-19 for marketing purposes.

On March 23, HashCash Consultants announced its upcoming ‘Corona Fund Index Cryptocurrency’ — a token backed by nothing which purports to mirror the performance of an inverse S&P 500 exchange-traded fund (ETF).

During February, developers from 4Chan launched ‘CoronaCoin’ — an ERC-20 token with a supply corresponding to the world’s population that will undergo a burn every 48 hours according to the number of COVID-19 fatalities.