Updated on:12/01/2025 05:07 PM 
Marsel Adawi studied computer science in college, but it was trading that first drew him into the world of cryptocurrency. Like many new traders, however, he quickly discovered he wasn't a natural, lacked a specific trading talent, and soon lost most of his initial capital.
Instead of giving up, he pivoted his focus to the technology underpinning digital assets, finding it far more compelling.
“I realized that I wanted to build a career in crypto,” he explains.
Two years later, Adawi is the founder and CEO of OptionRoom, a decentralized forecasting portal that allows users to speculate on the outcomes of real-world events.
Prediction markets are financial instruments designed to trade on the outcome of future events. For instance, during the recent U.S. presidential election, there was immense interest in the contest between the candidates. Individuals who purchased shares predicting the correct outcome were financially rewarded, while those who bet incorrectly lost their investment.
The principle at play is known as the "wisdom of the crowd." A famous example from the early 1900s involved a fairground game where participants guessed the weight of an ox. By requiring a small payment to guess, the experiment ensured that only those with some conviction participated. Astonishingly, the average guess of the crowd was often within 1% of the ox's actual weight. This demonstrates that collective intelligence, when incentivized, produces remarkably accurate results.
“This phenomenon is often referred to as the wisdom of the crowd, where a high degree of accuracy can be achieved through aggregation.”
OptionRoom leverages this concept on a blockchain, a secure and transparent network of computers.
“The security of a blockchain relies on its closed, trustless nature, but to create a prediction market, we need to bring in external data. This is where Oracles become essential. Oracles are entities that feed real-world information onto the blockchain.
“This could be anything from sports scores and weather data to election results or any other real-world information needed to resolve a market.”
Eventually, OptionRoom plans to differentiate itself from other Oracle providers by incorporating qualitative data sets directly from its community.
“Our plan is to avoid traditional external data sources like databases or APIs. Instead, we will source data directly from people. We call this a DAO Oracle, and the added value is that humans can interpret data in ways machines cannot. While machines are faster and more precise, humans can perform more complex, nuanced analysis.”
Examples of this complex human analysis include gauging market sentiment or interpreting geopolitical developments, which are difficult to automate accurately.
Governance on the protocol is managed through two tokens. The first is a utility token called ROOM, while the second is a governance token, COURT, which has a limited supply of 45,000. When users stake their COURT tokens, they receive voting power within the platform's DAO.
Typical governance votes might involve deciding on new oracle requests or determining the outcome of specific prediction markets.
“OptionRoom requires robust consensus and active participation to be successful. We were heavily influenced by an article written by Vitalik Buterin on prediction markets and their role in politics and forecasting. By adding financial incentives, we can generate far more truthful and accurate outcomes.”
Adawi uses the example of two friends discussing an upcoming sports match. Casually, they might just pick their favorite team.
“But if you ask them to bet $100 on the outcome, their analysis becomes much more rational and data-driven. It’s no longer about loyalty but about accuracy. This is the core principle that feeds back into the wisdom of the crowd.”
Future developments include quadratic voting – a system where users can express the intensity of their preference, rather than a simple 'yes' or 'no'. This is being developed for the Oracle component of the protocol. As Adawi states:
“Whatever you do on our protocol cannot be censored or shut down by a central authority.”
Currently, OptionRoom is in its third phase of beta testing, with a mainnet launch planned for this quarter. The team is actively gathering feedback from beta users to refine the protocol. The Oracle service is also scheduled to launch in the coming months.
Like many startups, OptionRoom faced an unforeseen crisis. The team was indirectly impacted by the Chainswap hack, which gave an attacker access to $800,000 worth of ROOM tokens. Adawi and his team had to make a critical decision in mere minutes.
“We believe in decentralization, so we could not freeze the protocol – we couldn't halt the main token or stop trading.”
Instead, they liquidated team assets to recover as much liquidity as possible, aiming to devalue the tokens held by the attacker.
“We immediately issued a warning on Twitter and Telegram to inform everyone, assuring them that no one should buy the token after the hack.”
The next step was to use the team’s own liquidity to stabilize the market on Uniswap and PancakeSwap.
“A major issue was that many users had deposited tokens in liquidity pool (LP) programs. We couldn't get them to withdraw fast enough, so we took a snapshot of everyone's positions and airdropped their original tokens back after the event.
“We managed to minimize the potential damage from $800,000 down to just $32,000. We are in contact with all affected exchanges and are back on track with building the protocol.”
OptionRoom survived a harrowing experience that demanded a rapid, decisive response. Adawi personally communicated with over 600 users on social media during the crisis.
“We had two choices: act fast or let the project die. We were not prepared to let it happen.”
This resilience in the face of adversity bodes well for the long-term success of the project.
