This week, Mirror begins an ongoing experiment in growth—granting our community the power to determine the platform's new members.

“What is Mirror?” and “Who’s on Mirror?” are synonymous questions. At least we aspire for them to be.

Mirror is a community-owned and operated protocol and economy. The value of Mirror is the aggregate value of the community’s body of work, meaning existing members have both cultural and economic stakes in who’s contributing. To ensure a quality foundation, we decided to grant access on an individual basis in the early stages of the platform.

For this we created the $WRITE token, a crypto alternative to the traditional platform invitation system. Obtaining one $WRITE token affords someone publishing power on Mirror. In exchange for burning their token, users are granted a unique plot on the Mirror frontier, which includes a unique name on ENS (*.mirror.xyz) and a minted publication.

But how do people get these tokens? Are we, the Mirror team, the sole gatekeepers of the platform? Is that at all in line with our values? Do we even have time for that? The answer is no, no and no. While we handpicked the first batch of writers, we’d hate to grow this thing as if our taste and knowledge is definitive. It obviously isn’t.

WELCOME TO $WRITE RACE

$WRITE RACE is a weekly showdown between writers who want to join Mirror. Our community will vote for writers they want to see join the platform next. At the end of each week, the top 10 writers are awarded one $WRITE token, which they can redeem for a publication on Mirror.

It’s an effort to replace the traditional invite system used by Web 2.0 platforms like Clubhouse, Superhuman and Gmail circa 2004-2007 with a crypto game. We’re talking token governance, staking and airdrops. It’s an effort to ensure the Mirror community gets to decide who it’s composed of and, accordingly, what it wants to be. It’s an effort to guarantee that our path towards a truly community-owned platform—where writers are the arbiters of the network and economy—begins on the right foot.

Nepotism and scarcity take a backseat to hive mind and reward. It’s simultaneously a collective rally behind the best writers and a way to discover them. It’s the crowdfunding of a profile. It’s a campaign. And, most of all, it’s fun.

HOW IT WORKS

1. You need some $WRITE to vote. Because $WRITE isn’t widely distributed yet, we’re bootstrapping voting power by airdropping $WRITE to existing members and anyone who joins the Mirror waitlist. You can join here.

2. The amount of $WRITE will be distributed in two tiers:

   1. Existing members with publications get 1 $WRITE. Since they’re actively creating value for the platform through content, we feel they deserve it.

   2. All new applicants who join the waitlist will receive 0.01 $WRITE. We see this as a first step in what we hope is a long term relationship.

3. The more $WRITE you have, the more your vote counts. The weight of your vote = $WRITE balance x 1000.

4. You can only vote once per round, staking all your votes on a single candidate.

5. Participants are ranked on the leaderboard based on total votes.

6. The first round of $WRITE RACE will last 12 hours. When the clock runs out, the top ten applicants will each receive 1 $WRITE token, enough to join Mirror and start a publication.

7. Whether or not you win, your continued participation in $WRITE RACE represents an investment in Mirror. That, too, will be rewarded with a little $WRITE.

8. Celebrate, go home, stretch, rest.

After each round, a summary of participation and the results will be published on-chain using a Merkle root verification contract, inspired by the UNI airdrop implementation. Voters will be able to redeem their $WRITE on mainnet by submitting a Merkle proof on-chain, thereby claiming their tokens. This will be as simple as claiming UNI tokens.

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So what’s gonna happen? We have no idea, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Maybe the prominent voices will reign supreme. Maybe an up-and-coming voice will climb the ranks and blow our minds. Maybe your favorite writer will get in. Maybe you’ll get in. Maybe you’ll discover a writer or two you’ve never heard of, whether they get in or not. Whatever happens, we hope it’s inspiring. We hope to learn from this first round ways to improve subsequent rounds. We hope to create a tool that benefits everyone as much as it surprises us.

Start your engines. Connect your wallets. Join the race.

Mirror reserves the right to revoke airdrops to players who are deemed to be bots.