OUR VISION
We are building the Minamoto Hub to manage the user profiles across the Internet purely for users’ benefit, so that individuals will have at least the same, if not more, bargaining power in terms of their data while facing the businesses as their counterparties.
OUR MISSION
To realize true freedom for the Internet end-user by which:
any user’s data or creation shall never be owned, controlled or manipulated by any corporation, entity or individual but itself;
any user’s source of information shall not be restricted by any algorithm or technology, preventing critical thinking of such a user.
OUR PRODUCT – Minamoto Hub (源Hub)
“Minamoto (源)” is a kanji, meaning the universe to be seen as a well-ordered whole, reflecting our ideology to unify the Internet access portal between the consumers and service providers. The part “Mina” has a similar pronunciation to the word “Minna (皆んな)” in Japanese, meaning everyone and “Moto (本)” means the origin, reflecting our founders’ core philosophy: to build products of the people, by the people, for the people.
Nowadays, businesses collect, interpret and control how data should be used from a profit-driven perspective, neglecting end-users-specific desires and intentions. The end-user is like a plaintiff going to a courtroom without a lawyer and facing a defendant with an army of lawyers. In this example, lawyers are analogous to data services. Realizing contemporary data service providers are rooted in serving businesses as their primary commercial purpose, our founders built Minamoto Hub to be the first profile management system for end-users, granting them massive controllability.
In starting Minamoto Hub in March 2022, we wanted to provide the Internet community with a toolkit that enables a smooth decentralized Internet experience. We call this emerging category “phantom character,” which is the new form of Internet interaction envisioned by us. Minamoto Hub is capable of creating, storing and distributing self-editable desensitized phantom characters through blockchain technology. End-users with their Minamoto Hub will no longer need to sign up or log in to their accounts with platforms and they will have a coherent experience with different platforms or applications by using Minamoto Hub. Users of Minamoto Hub are able to modify their true internet footprint or even create a secondary identity to disguise their preferences and default identities from a content or service provider. See “Why Do Users Need Minamoto Hub” and “Why Do Developers Need Minamoto Hub” under this section for detailed illustrations of its benefits for participants across our Minamoto Hub ecosystem.
Our Minamoto Hub breaks the blockade of the existing Web 2 data value proposition by creating a place where everyone can use their own data freely and safely. Through our product, people can interact with their data and transmit them to trusted platforms, exploring more opportunities and creating value.
Minamoto Hub is implemented through a series of components, including indexing and encryption algorithms, decentralized identities, decentralized storage, a dashboard interface and application interactive portals. All of these components are designed to prioritize anonymity, self-autonomy and scalability and are to be operated in a user-centric, blockchain-independent manner.
Minamoto Hub Protocol
Our Minamoto Hub protocol formulates the individualized profile managing infrastructure. The following chart sets forth the protocol breakdown of Minamoto Hub.
The workflow of Minamoto Hub can be summarized as such:
Transfer of user information. After first installing their Minamoto Hub, the end-users may import their data directly from their existing platforms, operating systems, applications, etc. Users may also import their information through direct importation if they want to.
Data desensitization and grouping/mapping. The raw data imported to Minamoto Hub will then be transcribed to desensitized data with different categories and tags (with different scaling if applicable) per a variety of dimensions. The identifiable data will be deleted after due transcriptions. We aim to unify the user tags of all Internet stakeholders to facilitate existing and future recommendation engine algorithms. The data associated with any single Minamoto Hub will be stored on our decentralized storage network vendors and only the users with correct private keys are able to see it, edit it or delete it. The end-user will always have an option to “delete” its Minamoto Hub at any time and any place and our team will have no access to the deleted information.
Editing/adjusting function. End-users may choose to edit, adjust or delete their desensitized category/grouping data anytime through our well-designed, user-friendly Minamoto Hub Dashboard (Dashboard). See “Why Do Users Need Minamoto Hub” － “Self-autonomy and true anonymity” under this section and “OUR PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE” － “A Decentralized Storage Layer” for details.
Sending desensitized user data to applications. After editing their desensitized user data, end-users may send them to the designated Web 2 or Web 3 applications upon request for an anonymous, self-autonomy and smooth Internet experience. For example, a GameFi application may need 100 user tags to become fully operational at the cold-start stage. When an end-user interacts with such an application, its Minamoto Hub will receive a request to send these 100 tags from the total tag pool. The Minamoto Hub will notify its user regarding highly sensitive tags requested and the user may choose to allow or deny the access request or even change some of the tags to hide its default identity and then allow the access request.
Refinement. The end-users’ behaviors collected from designated applications will be sent back to their Minamoto Hub to refine their images and preferences as well as to improve our embedded indexing algorithm. End-users will have the ability to adjust or delete the new tags collected and applications may want to “synchronize” their tags in a certain period of time for better tagging and recommendation purposes.
Why Do Users Need Minamoto Hub?
Self-autonomy and true anonymity: Minamoto Hub democratizes users’ digital identifications and makes them the true owner of their online footprints. Footprints (tags) transcribed and formed on Minamoto Hub belong to users and users only, analogous to how users own cryptocurrencies. In addition, via our Dashboard, our users can view, edit, delete or add any tags as their wish and send them to the designated platforms or applications, reclaiming their autonomy over the Internet, as well as decide how, where and for what the data is used. Last but not least, like any other protocol based on blockchain technology, users are able to hide their true identity via Minamoto Hub. Minamoto Hub enables users to create, multiply, edit or even randomize default phantom characters to create alternative characters. Users can use alternative characters just like their default phantom characters and the platform or application will not be aware of the difference.
Promote critical thinking: Our founders believe that all recommendation engine algorithms have original sin as they demote people’s critical thinking. The most commonly used recommendation engine algorithm follows the “people like you, like that” logic, i.e., the “user-user” algorithm. These recommendation engine algorithms create a vicious cycle as people are more likely to see what they like to see, hampering objective critical thinking. Minamoto Hub we developed has the capability to solve this problem by editing profiles via the Dashboard; therefore, users are free to switch between different perspectives. We are planning to promulgate template phantom characters from underrepresented groups for people interested in viewing the world in their eyes.
Portability: Interoperability promotes convenience in a truly open web setting. We empower everyone to travel between platforms and applications with their own phantom characters as their Web 3 identities via Minamoto Hub. Minamoto Hub is able to transport users’ favorite characters or traits to every platform and application they travel to.
Why Do Developers Need Minamoto Hub?
Bridging the users between Web 2 and Web 3: Minamoto Hub is built to adapt to most Web 3 as well as Web 2 settings. Our founders value Web 3 core principles a lot and they believe that through the materialization of self-autonomy, anonymity and ownership of personal data, there will be no clear boundary between Web 2 and Web 3. By building Minamoto Hub, we are essentially bridging the old-school Web 2 and next-stage Web 3, as well as the users. Users with Minamoto Hub can enjoy not only their favorite Web 2 features but also a decentralized experience of the brand-new Web 3 ecosystems.
Unified end-user tags and better recommendations: Through Minamoto Hub, we aim to unify the user tags of all Internet stakeholders to facilitate existing and future recommendation engine algorithms. Currently, barely any platform has standardized its user tags, let alone cross-platform coordination. It causes enormous transactional costs for the developers to understand what they need and what they want. As a visionary team, we would like to take the responsibility to unify the weights and measures across different user tag standards, facilitating both the developers and the platforms on their future projects. With Minamoto Hub, developers will no longer hesitate to explore the mud and marsh in user tags and the cross-application coordination will be much easier than before.
Platform/blockchain-independent development pathway: Minamoto Hub protocol is designed to be open without tying to any single blockchain. The protocol is created for a multi-blockchain ecosystem, enabling the portability and scalability of the Web 3 experience.
Reduce cold start problem: Almost every application has to solve the cold start problem, which is a core consideration when developers analyze retention rate. With Minamoto Hub, an application can tap into our system from the moment users consent, reducing the learning curve for developers and users.
Policy-driven movement: There is a worldwide trend to urge the platforms to return user data ownership to end-users. Until the publication of this Whitepaper, no feasible approach has been proposed either commercially or legislatively from our team’s perspective. Our founders view Minamoto Hub as a plausible pathway to deal with this trend.
OUR PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE
Several components are crucial in the architecture of Minamoto Hub: (1) a desensitizing algorithm, (2) a decentralized identity solution, (3) an indexing layer capable of sourcing and indexing user tags, (4) a decentralized storage layer, (5) an editing dashboard with associated user interfaces, (6) connecting portals for designated application layers. To achieve our business goals, we may utilize several other technologies and products.
Under this section, we provide our vision of the indexing, synchronization and storage of the future Web 3 profile management system. We do not wish to cultivate misleading expectations that all the features described here will be presented in our prototype or early versions. However, it marks our direction for Minamoto Hub and we sincerely hope our work will inspire the developer community.
Indexing
The indexing layer is the core of Minamoto Hub. It helps end-users to organize their information and form a complete and reasonable portrait. At the same time, data desensitization will be performed on the information gathered to avoid any input or potential leakage of identifiable data. Followed by a sophisticated and evolving indexing methodology, we would like to set the indexing baseline of grouping ordering and hierarchy of user tags for the community. We are going to open-source our indexing methodology when applicable and form a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to vote, refine and build it with us.
Utilizing our indexing methodology, we built a user-friendly Minamoto Hub Dashboard for end-users to generate, edit, disable and delete their tags at their wish. The entire personalized tag pool will be visible to the holding user through his/her Dashboard by categories or by authorized applications or platforms. While trying to access a particular application, a user may choose whether to disclose a portion of or all requested tags to it. He/she may also choose to modify certain tags and send them to the designated application and the modification can be (1) permanent, meaning that the tag will be permanently changed to the value modified, (2) app-specific, meaning that the modified value will apply to the designated application only or (3) category-specific, meaning that the modified value will apply to the similar applications across the categories, i.e., social networking applications. The following sets forth a sample proof chain.
For tags with similar characteristics or values, the indexing layer will respond and categorize them all together with priority considerations, including but not limited to user preset values, time of input and specialty of incoming sources.
Supplementing the indexing layer, we built a meaningful data feedback channel through our “synchronize” feature opened for adoption by developers. Applications may choose to send their generated tags through users’ behaviors at their ends back to us and these tags may be directly or indirectly reviewed or updated by users through their Dashboards, facilitating better user experience and recommendation. Through synchronization, we are building an extraordinarily meaningful data feedback channel for both users and product/service providers.
Our Minamoto Hub breaks the blockade of the existing Web 2 data value proposition by creating a place where everyone can use their own data freely and safely. Through our product, people can interact with their data and transmit them to trusted platforms, exploring more opportunities and creating value.
Storage
As one fundamental feature of Minamoto Hub, our end-users’ desensitized personal information and tags should be stored somewhere while adhering to the strict standards of anonymity, censorship resistance, surveillance resistance and openness. Therefore, we would like to use multiple trustworthy decentralized storage network providers as our vendors and backups for avoiding any potential data loss.
Once users connect to Minamoto Hub, they will be asked to import their personal data from existing applications or platforms. Desensitizing all the personal data and transcribing it to tags, Minamoto Hub will then send a storage request to our designated vendors to store all tags collected on behalf of the user. The vendors will issue private keys to the user directly and a complementary access certificate with limited access to Minamoto Hub following the user’s permission. The complementary access certificate is for users to use the Dashboard function embedded in Minamoto Hub, as well as gives us access to improve the user’s tag pool by creating a modified data layer for tag unification purposes. The objective to create a modified data layer is to fulfill our ideology to unify the user tags across the Internet, facilitating developers to better interact with them and thereby improving the end-user experience. As the complementary access certificate holder, we will not be granted the authority to modify or delete the original data and tags by any means. Only the users can modify or delete the data stored and once they initiate such a delete request to us, we will simultaneously delete both the original and modified data. To facilitate our kick-off, we introduce a later-unnecessary layer, a customized data layer, to accommodate the needs of applications. The data stored in Minamoto Hub’s modified data layer will be translated with a standard that the designated applications can understand. We envisioned that such a customized data layer would eventually disappear along with the growth of our user base.
By using Minamoto Hub to access applications, users can utilize the features provided. The applications will generate more tags as a result of further user understanding. As a Minamoto Hub protocol, the application providers may want to send these additional tags back to our decentralized storage network providers and us for synchronization and unification purposes. These additional tags will be firstly stored in the original database, unified and stored in the modified database and then in the customized data layer. The following chart sets forth the workflow of our Minamoto Hub storage processes.
With the Minamoto Hub storage feature, end-users are going to be the true owner of their personal data, creating maximum flexibility in their online experience.
CONCLUSION
The overall objective for Minamoto Hub is to create a user-centric profile management system, democratizing and autonomizing the data to be used by applications or platforms. The future releases and parts of the project mentioned will still change as the technology of the space progresses, as the goal is always to offer a user-friendly experience and be at the cutting edge of technology and culture. Therefore, the plans mentioned above are mostly to give you an idea of this project's direction, but the results could differ. Specific dates for these releases will be announced as we go along.
We are a humble team of innovators and the introduced architecture is one feasible approach to realizing our ideology. We would like to incentivize the community to adopt, improve or even redesign our architecture with us. A DAO will soon be established by us and we would like everyone that is interested to participate and develop the indexing feature of Minamoto Hub.
Minamoto Lab
June 13th, 2022
CONTACT
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