How do you accurately and fairly judge a blockchain against others within the industry?
Blockchain technology has come a long way since BTC was first conceptualized and brought to life in 2009. Chains have developed various methods using numerous technologies to all achieve the same abstraction that ETH first brought into the space. So far there is no way to compare these advances in the crypto space in an independent, accurate & simple way. The best measure we have is market cap, this is great for judging popularity and the perceived value of a project but does not reflect the true value that a chain brings to the industry.
White papers give us a great inside look into what technology or methods a project is using but an issue occurs when these types of papers are handed out to retail investors. Majority of the terminology goes right over their head, it's like reading a different language. The minority who can understand these papers for what they actually describe, are typically the ones who work on similar projects. Known as developers, they have the ability to evaluate what a project brings to the table. However they do not have a platform to help them communicate to retail investors in a simple manner that can be considered independent & accurate as well. This pushes responsibility onto the retail investor to know the technology they read about in what is called D.Y.O.R. or Do Your Own Research. This is an extremely popular phrase among retail investors simply due to how much uncertainty there is about a project’s legitimacy.
This result of retail investors needing to source information across various websites is hurting the crypto market as a whole. Wishing to understand what they are investing in and whether that investment should equate to profit should not be a stressful endeavor. Even worse, this has resulted in a massive amount of scams that have cost investors millions of dollars, left the industry tarnished and may be responsible for slowing down mainstream adoption. With so many scams occurring anyone who has gotten caught in one or was looking to invest in other projects must proceed with extreme caution. All of this confusion around the legitimacy of a project is terrible for quality projects looking to be known in a field of 5,000+ different solutions.
A solution to the confusion is for a platform to be a one stop shop on all things crypto. Not only should the platform provide a high amount of information about crypto and the projects utilizing blockchain technology, it must provide an unquestionable independent and accurate evaluation of every project. Free from any potential financial influence. Achieving this requires retail investors, developers, and organizations to all provide input which can then be used to give a rating.
How will the evaluation system function?
Retail investors already helped to create the first pillar, Market Cap. It’s a system already in use and provides a wonderful and easy way to judge the popularity of a chain at any given time. The main issue with this system is that it lacks the ability to separate a quality chain from one that is just heavily marketed and therefore more widely known. This has occurred many times with chains falling in and out of the top 20 numerous times over the past decade. Strong advertising has also led to many rug-pulls, leaving a bad taste in investors' mouths. Within the platform retail investors can simply vote for any coin, like or dislike. The vote can be changed at any time but will always only count as 1 vote. This can provide a similar result to market cap within the platform, giving retail investors an extra vote of support beyond acquiring a chain's coin. Popularity within the platform can be weighed against “market cap” to give an averaged score. 10/10 for both for a total of 20. For voting on popularity the score is based on percentage of voters and which way the vote swings. i.e. 70% positive 7 points, 70% negative 3 points. “Market cap” is a bit trickier of a metric to place into a 1-10 scale. Points should be allocated by how diverse the chain can be within the market, top 100 all coins +1, top 100 cryptocurrency +1, top 100 utility coin +1, top 100 oracle +1, etc.. With abstraction becoming greater with each generation then blockchains will eventually fall into multiple categories naturally.
The second pillar is Technology which can only be accurately judged by developers. For this we can also use a system already in place, the blockchain trilemma. Security, Scalability, & Decentralization with each getting a 1-20 grade, for a total of 60 points. Every developer can take a survey allowing them to grade differing aspects of the technology running a project and if it is accurate to what the company says. Every survey is done anonymously, and can only be done once per blockchain. Any retail account can become verified as a developer, but can only do so through proof of work. The platform will need to connect to a GitHub type of account that has submitted work X times and has been checked & verified by other users. This ensures that the owner of the account being given developer status actually understands the technology they will be verifying and evaluating. Technology will hold the highest value (60 points) in the full grade because it is the driving force that causes blockchains to evolve with each generation. Greater abstraction leads to further advances in what the technology can do, and it is this technology that holds projects accountable and teaches retail investors about what they hold.
Finally the third pillar is Transparency. Organizations that provide the most transparency create the greatest amount of trust. This is why open-source and non-profit type of blockchain projects hold the most trust amongst their users. These types of blockchains can easily transition onto the platform and quickly receive a grading. There is nothing however to actually prove that private organizations are being true to their word. Whitepapers which have been used to provide details about a project for years are not always accurate. Trust is not as easily given as the blockchain could not be real, or it doesn't function the way it has been marketed. The latter can be seen with chains claiming to be decentralized when in fact they are very centralized, or chains claiming strong security when in fact it is very weak. The platform solves this issue by helping to verify a project's claims with its actual functionality. Since developers can submit surveys anonymously there is no way for an organization to punish anyone for providing accurate details to the public. This puts power into the retail investors hands and makes earning a full 20 points for transparency more valuable as well. At first there is no pressure for private organizations to submit detailed papers about their work. There is no reason or incentive that a private blockchain should reveal high level details about its functionality. As more blockchains become graded and the platform is used by investors to research projects, the lowered value given to private blockchains will have a negative effect on their adoption. Incentivizing private chains to be more forthcoming with details. Transparency points will be awarded by submitting high level paperwork, being cross verified as true by devs, using an account verified as the organization, etc. Each action could come with a varying level of points, giving priority to more informative actions.
Every blockchain project is then given a full evaluation grade between 0-100. With input from retail investors, developers and the organization themselves, every grade can be accepted as a fair and justified evaluation.
Great, so evaluations are fair & accurate. Now what?
The platform needs to function as a tool for investors, direct market communication for organizations, and a repository for developers. The platform would be like a combination of Reddit, Github, & Messari to satisfy all of these needs. A typical forum board with a more streamlined UI creates communication between all three. Sectioning the crypto market place into easily searchable metrics like oracles, currency, store of value, utility, etc. A homepage that creates a direct to user news feed, with technical analysis tools for any crypto chart. A repository for devs to work directly on a project's code, both public and private versions. All intertwining into a complete system for crypto research and discussion.
The Homepage: Portal to A Wealth of Knowledge
Decentralized Identification accounts by all users will help eliminate bot accounts, and scammers. This will help the platform retain it’s integral user trust. Utilizing such accounts will also allow the user's unique homepage to be connected to multiple crypto accounts at once with the ability to make trades directly from the homepage. Direct to Exchange Widgets can become a possibility as accessing the homepage with a Unipass account can give access to all exchanges that account is attached to. A user can safely store their coins offsite and still make trades, without worry of someone trying to hack the site and run away with funds.
Default crypto charts displayed on the homepage can be the newly defined crypto sectors, Crypto 100, Oracle 20, Currency 50, etc. but these should be programmable to display specific charts or a users portfolio. Market sectors have not officially formed yet but they are there, BTC tends to have a strong hold over the entire market but not every coin follows that trend. As the market matures these coins & sectors will show more and more separation from BTC’s hold, and with chain interoperability solutions being the next step in crypto evolution this will become more apparent sooner than we may expect. There will be direct competition between dApps from various chains all competing to be the top solution for their problem. Creating sectors as the market shifts allows for the data to be collected and understood as early as possible. By creating these sectors the entire market can now be properly organized to help users diversify their portfolio, they can search for specific types of chains. If someone wants to add an Oracle to their portfolio they can simply search for the category and find a list of chains ranked by the evaluation system. From there they can read up on each chain and make an informed decision. Selecting a chain from the results should bring up a wiki style page that provides information provided by the chain themselves.
Users can also follow chains which will provide them with active news posts from the chains directly to the homepage. This feed may also grow to include articles from various crypto sites that are connected to the Decentralized Identification account as well. Individuals will have the ability to post technical analysis reports in specific forums or even their own created forums, users who like these types of posts can also follow fellow DID accounts. Having the news feed and Direct to Exchange Widgets on the same page will help investors make quick decisions about buying or selling if they see a shift about to happen in the market.
The goal of the homepage is to be as informative as possible while also being as flexible and simple of a design as possible. Providing enough information to get a quick and informed understanding of the market without having to search across multiple sites or pages.
Forums: Building A Fair Crypto Market
The heart and soul behind the crypto community, coming together not only to discuss projects but also collaborating to create their own. When accessing the forums the users should be presented with four choices. Developer, Blockchains, Launchpad, Analysis. Each of these will provide access to differing aspects of the crypto market. Forums for these aspects are already common, only they’re spread across various social media platforms. Implementation should be fairly straight forward. Helping to differentiate this platform from others would be the different forum setups.
Developer: A repository of posts about code implementation and updates for each blockchain. Similar to GitHub this forum will be the section that blockchains use to release documentation about the functionality and inner workings of their project. Retail accounts will have the ability to view all public posts but will be locked out from being able to post, comment, or edit themselves until they earn a developer status on the platform. Unless specified every organization's forum will be public, If possible the platform should streamline access to open-source licenses for projects that start on the platform.
Blockchains: Each organization will have their own forum unlocked after earning enough Transparency points. They can provide chain specific news at any time, but only after unlocking the forum can they engage with the community more personally with their repository close at hand to help users understand the functionality better. The goal for this space is to become the outlet for breaking news, the first notice of a new bridge, dApp, coin, DAO, etc. Every post creates discussion which provides an inside look into how the community feels. This keeps the organization’s finger on the crypto market pulse.
Launchpad: Have an idea for a new dApp, Layer 1, or Layer 2 solution? This is where to start. Have a question about a specific crypto, or just learning the ropes? Ask it here. Not only should Launchpad be a starting point for retail investors to educate and learn about various chains, how they work, or community opinions. This section should be one that cultivates new ideas and brings them to life. Someone can make a writeup about an idea they have and developers can weigh in on whether or not they think the idea is plausible. If devs like the idea enough then everyone can continue to work out the idea on the Developer forums. While many projects may not come to be fully realized, some will and as chain technology advances projects will be able to get more complex. We could see ideas for open world games, digital audio libraries, or new crypto methods conceptualized by the average investor. Doing this helps to expand the market’s capabilities. Allowing the crypto community itself to become it’s very own think tank to help drive the market forward, may just lead to a new explosion of development within the market.
Analysis: If you follow stocks you understand how important analysis is to the market and figuring out price points to buy or sell at. The major difference between crypto and stocks is that the stock investors who have to do their own research get an upper hand with SEC regulations that require companies to be transparent with their financials every quarter. Crypto doesn't have these regulations making the majority of price analyses closer to fortune telling rather than informed deductive reasoning. Currently the best source of data research about crypto is Messari. They do a wonderful job by providing detailed analyses, but are the only ones doing something of this nature. The only issue with their solution is there is nothing to stop the funds given to Messari by chains and used to pay analysts from influencing them in their write ups. Also not all reports are free to the public. This section of the platform is meant to replicate the research and data compiled on a site like Messari but with the backing of the evaluation system to give a greater level of trust. Any regular account can submit an analysis but the forum style will allow discussion on every post. This makes cross examination of chains more common and allows scrutiny from the community when an analyst fails to provide cold hard facts and evidence. For true transparency users should not be allowed to submit an analysis post if they contain that chain within their portfolio. This helps to eliminate any concerns that the author is making the write up simply for their own benefit.
Each of these forums provides a unique space where the crypto community can come together and work towards informing, understanding, and reviewing the towers of information that currently make up the entire market.
The platform now has multiple use cases, how do we fund it?
One of if not the most important addition to web 1.0 was Wikipedia. A non-profit digital public library that has helped millions of people to learn, ideally this platform could run like Wikipedia but crypto is not an ideal world. Constantly crowdfunding a project would be no different than other chains constantly marketing to give their coin a use case. Becoming a giant ad does not speak of wanting fairness and transparency in crypto; it feels more like simple greed. Additionally creating a coin just for the sake of creating value does not always translate into drawing funds onto a platform, it requires a stronger purpose. The simplest fix to avoid these issues is a lottery.
Lotteries are the fairest system of selection that humans have created. It is completely random, and when utilized in the correct manner can become a wonderful source of income for the platform. This avoids any issues of needing constant advertising, or pushing so hard just to give a coin a purpose. By utilizing the psychology behind meme coins with extremely high coin circulations and the potential of 1000%+ gains on a weekly basis the platform can supply itself with a slim take off the top. To avoid any suspicion from users of a potential rugpull the lotto must be audited multiple times with the reviews released. The lotto must be fully automated with zero input from humans once it goes live.
The lottery runs on a squid game concept, or survivor takes all. The Treasury acts as a simple AMM exchange except it only receives stable coins and gives the lotto coin. The lotto coin should be useless outside of the Treasury keeping the quantity a constantly known and tracked figure. Every week from Monday at 00:01 until 7 days later at Sunday 23:59 users can purchase as much of the Quadrillion lotto coins as they want. Coin value always starts with $1 equaling 1,000,000 lotto coins. When they purchase coins the stable coins are added to the Treasury pool increasing the total value of the lotto coins worth. Only allowing stable coins keeps the rewards consistent, and fair for the winners. In return for stable coins the user will receive a wallet with the corresponding amount of lotto coins. Every purchase is a new wallet which increases a user's chance of survival until the last round.
Every week at the stroke of midnight the lotto activates a burn mechanism. A percentage between 0.01% and 99.99% is randomly chosen and then an equal amount of randomly selected wallets are burned. This means that users can watch the circulation numbers go from one Quadrillion to hundreds of Trillions, to Billions, Millions, Thousands, every week. Anyone who survives the burn will see an instant reflection in how much their wallets are now worth. $100 can turn into $1,000 or $10,000 in the blink of an eye. Users can then cash out after, or if they are daring roll the dice and purchase more wallets. This process repeats every week until only one wallet is left holding the entire circulation of lotto coins. The treasury will take a 1% cut of the total prize each week and give that to the platform, the rest goes to the survivors.
A winner will have a total of 14 days to claim their winnings or the Treasury will burn the final wallet and re-mint the full circulation amount to start the lotto again. The funds from the previous lotto will be used as prize money for the next round. As the platform gains popularity the lotto should grow alongside it helping to further fund the platform, the security risk of malicious actors is high as the prize money grows. Containing the prize pool on layer 1 allows for strength against such malicious actions and a quick ability to send funds back up to layer 2 for users to receive when they cash out.
With a highly beneficial lotto system users are more likely to participate, creating real value for the platform on a weekly basis. This helps to keep the platform clear from any direct monetary influence sustaining the high trust and transparency the platform is built around. It allows the platform to benefit from the system without giving too much reliance on forcing adoption, creating more natural growth.
Why should users participate?
Due to the platform generating income from a lotto system, rather than an economic structure, nobody is actually incentivized to use the platform. This makes user growth extremely slow especially in the beginning. The platform should look to inspire those who volunteer their time on projects they are passionate about. This is seen across various forums where people are typically not paid to share findings or research they invested hours of their time into. Humans love to question things, ask why, test things out, see what works and doesn’t. This is an aspect of our nature as old as time. We also enjoy discussing our findings with others, receiving praise about what we did along with feedback on proceeding forward.
Unfortunately, I don't think this would be enough for developers to take anonymous surveys about numerous chains, many of which they may have to research just to be able to properly answer the survey. Now directly Incentivizing all retail investors just doesn’t make sense as the influence of money will shift their posts to hype up chains, leaving us back at square one. Organizations won’t need to be further incentivized beyond free direct to the consumer advertising of their chain and its technology. Developers are likely to already be getting paid for working on various projects, so why should they research into a chain for free. Their time could be spent working on projects that generate income for them. As much as basic human psychology can constantly push them to pursue personal interests, people need money to survive in the modern world.
The easiest solution would be to give a consistent rate per chain, and allow the developer to choose which coin type they would like to receive equivalent to the value decided for each survey. Since the funds for the platform would be coming in as stable coins then any payouts could be made by converting the dollar amount into the chosen coin. E.g. If every survey is worth $10 then the developer can receive $10 in BTC, ETH, CKB, DOT, ADA, etc. Since the platform does not have it’s own coin it’s a lot fairer to allow incentives to be paid out in every coin possible. With this type of option developers could make a few hundred in a SoV, or thousands in potential gains from a rising chain. Monetary influence doesn’t change how written code works allowing greater trust between developers and the platform. Beyond surveys developers could also be incentivized to audit a chain's code from time to time and be rewarded for reporting issues. Payment would scale with the severity of the issue found.
Should “analysts” be incentivized? Possibly, the payout is fair as they choose which coin to receive funds from and they are not allowed to create a post about a coin attached to their DID account portfolio. So issues shouldn’t arise, but money is alway influential. If someone was given a cup of coffee and asked how it tastes they are likely to respond honestly, give them coffee and ask them how it tastes for $5 and they’ll be more inclined to share positive feedback. So the goal must be to provide incentive post work without needing to ask users to provide an analysis. This would keep the psychology of volunteering to help others consistent but with an added benefit. In fact there may be an increase in posts about various chains as users hope to receive a payout for their work. This will create clutter and will need a solution to filter out the quality content from the basic money grab posts.
To settle the issue with any retail investor writing up analyses that are more beneficial to themselves than to readers, users must purchase a DAS account and go through a vesting period of one year. The waiting period should be a long enough period that those who seek immediate gains lose interest. By needing to acquire a DAS account the user is putting their own funds forward, without repayment. This should guarantee only those seeking to help the crypto community are participating. The benefit to the user for doing something like this is the DAS account will grow in value as they grow in popularity, making it beneficial long term. When Nervos grows in value the platform should also be growing, making the value for a DAS account a reflection of the value an Analysis account holds.
After analysts have created their account they can begin to receive payments for posting write ups. They will be graded by the accuracy, depth of information, and community discussion. This gives a higher value to highly informative, research driven content that engages the community. Those who will benefit the most from this setup are those who not only understand the technology the best but have the best method of deliverance to a community that largely doesn't understand the who, what, why of crypto.
Conclusion
The platform has a system of checks and balances that helps to solve many of the issues crypto is currently facing. It helps to eliminate fear within the market, provides a fair and true evaluation of every chain, and helps to push the industry into mainstream adoption quicker by creating more trust in the market. It is able to combine all of these, while providing the average user with a quick and easy way to assess the quality of a project across multiple metrics. This allows an average user to easily do their own research, with tools at hand to help everyone from a beginner to an expert in crypto.