I'm a cryptocurrency newbie. Thanks for the info. I purchased some REP on 18 Aug 2015. From what I can gather, when its ready, you'll activate the next phase of the Augur system. And then REP will once again be traded on the exchanges. Is my understanding correct?
Yes, that's correct.
A few months ago when I saw the price collapse of REP on the price charts (bravenewcoin.com and others) I had no idea what was going on. And was naturally worried.
The REP price you saw on the charts was actually the price of REP IOU's sold by a single exchange (Gatecoin). They participated in the token sale and were selling IOUs for their tokens to people on their exchange. As I understand it, their exchange was hacked and went offline, and after that the price chart websites just didn't have any sources of data for REP any longer.
Long story short: the REP price shown on the charts was probably not accurate to begin with, as it represented a REP IOU (rather than actual REP tokens) and the volume traded was quite small. The only concrete market price for REP is the price at the conclusion of the token sale ($0.59/REP, if I remember correctly).
Other than reddit, is Augur REP active on some exchange such that it has a market value that is listed on some price chart? I searched and haven't found any.
I've heard people are trading small amounts of REP IOUs through one of the Ripple gateways (Gatehub, I think?). As with Gatecoin's "REP", it's important to know that these are just IOUs. For legal reasons, real (non-IOU) REP will not be tradeable on exchanges until Augur's live release.
Will you email out Augur newsletters to keep subscribers updated? What is the best way to receive updates on Augur progress?
Yes, we do have a newsletter. There's a signup for the newsletter on our
landing page. We limit the newsletters to relatively big news items to keep it from feeling spammy.
For the REP I purchased in Aug 2015, do I need to do anything with it? Or just let it sit until the next phase of Augur is launched?
Just let it sit for now. There will be a "dry run" (probably in a month or so) where we'll distribute "play" REP using the same distribution mechanism the live release will use. This will be 100% optional and the only reason to participate in this is if you'd like to help us test. Otherwise, there's nothing you need to do until Augur's live release.
Thanks again for keeping us updated.
Thanks for participating in the token sale. Maybe we've been too quiet lately, but we really do appreciate your vote of confidence in us
Also, I think I remember seeing that the REP sold in Aug 2015 is a "test" version of REP that will get converted to "real" REP at some point. This true? Any details most appreciated. Thanks.
No, that's not true. There will be a "test" version of REP distributed (to make sure the distribution mechanism is secure / works correctly, as mentioned above), but the REP sold in the token sale is definitely real REP, and will be distributed when Augur launches.