Over the past couple of weeks I've reached out to a few teams and individuals who are building what are - to me at least - some of the most interesting projects in crypto today.
As it stands, I'm supporting two projects, in the middle of an email exchange with a founder/developer, and waiting for a response from another project.
One project, CryptoCountries, actually reached out to me asking for support with audience engagement and translation work for the Korean market after finding my profile on Ethlance.com. That's pretty cool.
I am also on the small Korean translation team for OpenBazaar supporting the translation of their site for Korean users.
After reading about StakeTree in the Token Economy newsletter a few weeks ago, I reached out directly to Niel de la Rouviere, the 'Chief Catalyst' there. I congratulated him on the great initial interest and traction he has started to receive before offering my translation services and help with any other needs he may have. He is a one man show for now, but I'll keep checking in with him every couple of weeks.
Lastly, I am still waiting for a response from the Cent team. I am most excited about this project, so I really hope there is some aspect of the project that I can get involved with and support. As a gesture of good will I sent them Korean translations of their three Medium posts. We'll see what happens.
I am very bullish on the future of this space, and super excited to be a part of it any way I can.
2018년 2월 22일 목요일
2018년 2월 18일 일요일
Cent - Chapter 2 Centurions & CENT
*This is the second part in a fictional forward-looking series based on the site beta.cent.co - click here for Part 1*
The 'beer money' payout marked the first, and perhaps most important, viral hit for Cent.
And at the heart of that decisive change was the decision to anoint an exclusive class of users: the Centurions.
The debate amongst a few Centians and the two founders prior to the decision to introduce this separate user class was heated. The biggest worry was that existing users and potential new users would be turned off by what could be construed as a centralization. They were also afraid it was an unnecessary complication.
Those worries were quickly replaced by a major problem that erupted on the site. Due to the lack of any real mechanism to prevent users from signing up under multiple emails, a number of spam responses posted by single users with multiple accounts began siphoning off major portions of bounties.
Max and Cam tried to minimize the problem by sending these responses to the bottom of the response list by erasing the amount of the bounty they received, but that didn't address the root of the problem. And it didn't prevent those users from receiving those funds, since fund distribution was carried out automatically via a smart contract.
Therefore the founders finally acquiesced to the repeated pleadings of a few, passionate Centians who perceived the problem early on and created the exclusive Centurion class consisting of seven users: Max, Cam, Steven McKie, yours truly and three others
It seems obvious now, but the Centurions did more than simply establish a novel way to mitigate spam accounts and help reinforce the 'beer money' standard.
Through their consistent up/down voting of responses they helped curate the responses that bounty setters were seeking in the first place.
Centurions also made it possible to introduce the tagging system the site sorely needed to facilitate searches for past bounty topics. This allowed old bounties to be re-opened if updates were needed as one example. For each new tag a Centurion added, they were awarded 1% of the 7% of the bounty reserved for Centurions.
A major moment for Cent was when the big names started showing up. The Burniskes. The Navals. The Wilsons. The Centurions were behind this as well.
The Centurions brought a human touch for these new users. They brought them onboard, verified their sns accounts and broadcast their membership. In a time when automation was the singular focus, Cent combined the best of the human experience complimented by the convenience of automation.
Cent became a site for users, run by users. And Centurions were the first employees.
One of the most important contributions the Centurions made was an indirect one. Their introduction essentially laid the framework to launch Cent's native token, CENT.
Cent's token distribution came together almost overnight after the Centurions were introduced. Since the value of the network had been created in advance, there was no need to carry out an ICO. Instead the three classes of users (bounty setters, centurions, bounty responders) received CENT based on how much they contributed to Cent up until that point.
The amount of CENT bounty setters received was 1000x the amount of ETH they previously set as bounties on Cent. Centurions received 700x the amount of ETH they received for their support in CENT. Regular Centians received 300x what they earned in ETH by providing responses and up voting in CENT.
What set CENT apart from ICOs or token distributions that came before it was the distinct utility it gave users right away:
Centurions and CENT were pivotal in the development and growth of Cent. They have proven invaluable to the growth and development of Cent not to mention the additional features and uses of the CENT token were built out later.
The 'beer money' payout marked the first, and perhaps most important, viral hit for Cent.
And at the heart of that decisive change was the decision to anoint an exclusive class of users: the Centurions.
The debate amongst a few Centians and the two founders prior to the decision to introduce this separate user class was heated. The biggest worry was that existing users and potential new users would be turned off by what could be construed as a centralization. They were also afraid it was an unnecessary complication.
Those worries were quickly replaced by a major problem that erupted on the site. Due to the lack of any real mechanism to prevent users from signing up under multiple emails, a number of spam responses posted by single users with multiple accounts began siphoning off major portions of bounties.
Max and Cam tried to minimize the problem by sending these responses to the bottom of the response list by erasing the amount of the bounty they received, but that didn't address the root of the problem. And it didn't prevent those users from receiving those funds, since fund distribution was carried out automatically via a smart contract.
Therefore the founders finally acquiesced to the repeated pleadings of a few, passionate Centians who perceived the problem early on and created the exclusive Centurion class consisting of seven users: Max, Cam, Steven McKie, yours truly and three others
It seems obvious now, but the Centurions did more than simply establish a novel way to mitigate spam accounts and help reinforce the 'beer money' standard.
Through their consistent up/down voting of responses they helped curate the responses that bounty setters were seeking in the first place.
Centurions also made it possible to introduce the tagging system the site sorely needed to facilitate searches for past bounty topics. This allowed old bounties to be re-opened if updates were needed as one example. For each new tag a Centurion added, they were awarded 1% of the 7% of the bounty reserved for Centurions.
A major moment for Cent was when the big names started showing up. The Burniskes. The Navals. The Wilsons. The Centurions were behind this as well.
The Centurions brought a human touch for these new users. They brought them onboard, verified their sns accounts and broadcast their membership. In a time when automation was the singular focus, Cent combined the best of the human experience complimented by the convenience of automation.
Cent became a site for users, run by users. And Centurions were the first employees.
One of the most important contributions the Centurions made was an indirect one. Their introduction essentially laid the framework to launch Cent's native token, CENT.
Cent's token distribution came together almost overnight after the Centurions were introduced. Since the value of the network had been created in advance, there was no need to carry out an ICO. Instead the three classes of users (bounty setters, centurions, bounty responders) received CENT based on how much they contributed to Cent up until that point.
The amount of CENT bounty setters received was 1000x the amount of ETH they previously set as bounties on Cent. Centurions received 700x the amount of ETH they received for their support in CENT. Regular Centians received 300x what they earned in ETH by providing responses and up voting in CENT.
What set CENT apart from ICOs or token distributions that came before it was the distinct utility it gave users right away:
- It allowed bounty setters to feature their bounties on the main Cent feed (the number of CENT they attached to their bounty was clearly displayed on active bounties)
- Centians could attach CENT to their responses to ensure it featured at the top of all responses whilst the bounty was active. (Note: that CENT was distributed across all responses (including theirs) that received net positive up votes for that bounty proportional to the total number of up votes received)
- Centians could attach CENT to other responses that, when combined with up votes would ensure that response was featured higher in the responses and go directly to the responder after the bounty ended; if the response was down voted the response was displayed towards the bottom of the responses and distributed to responses that receives net positive up votes when the bounty expired
- Whilst the number of Centurions was initially fixed at seven, after CENT was introduced, each Centurion was required to stake a minimum amount of CENT. After that, anyone could become a Centurion if they staked an amount of CENT equal to 100% more than the most recent amount of CENT staked by the newest Centurion. (E.g. if the last Centurion staked 1000 CENT, the next centurion would have to stake 2000, the next 4000, the next 8000 etc...).
Centurions and CENT were pivotal in the development and growth of Cent. They have proven invaluable to the growth and development of Cent not to mention the additional features and uses of the CENT token were built out later.
2018년 2월 6일 화요일
Risk as a Function of Perception
I am just about to wrap up Brad Stone's "The Everything Store," his book on Jeff Bezos and the inception, initial rise followed by hard times, and ultimate success of Amazon.
Usually biographies humanize their subjects, but in this case, Bezos has essentially become a god in my eyes. An angry god to be sure, and one that knows the devil is in the details.
Beyond Bezos though, what really struck and stuck with me, was how the book perfectly captured the anxiety and fear that permeated the markets during the bear cycle and ultimate dot.com bubble pop back in 2000.
At that time Amazon's stock fell to less than $10, losing hundreds of millions of dollars for shareholders and employees. And they were getting *trashed* in the media.
Amazon's then treasurer summed up the fear and anxiety perfectly: "The most anxiety-inducing thing about [the Wall Street bears and negative media] was that the risk [of going to zero] was a function of perception and not the reality."
The real danger was that the negative media might turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that strain of bearish thinking actually took hold for awhile. Large numbers of people illogically thought the Internet revolution and all its invention would just disappear.
It feels like this history is rhyming again today as the crypto sector has just lost hundreds of billions off its network value virtually overnight.
The bears and perma-critics are smugly declaring defeat for cryptocurrencies. Many retail investors probably didn't know anything about the underlying tech so they probably think crypto dead too.
But just as Amazon and its cohort of other dot.com bubble survivors have shown, these sorts of revolutions have a way of upending short-term criticism over the long run. As the internet continues to prove, it has had an extremely powerful non-linear impact on every single other sector.
Amazon used the power of the internet to provide customers - end users - with a level of instant, personalized satisfaction that was impossible before it. That in turn has helped it become a real contender to become the everything store for the whole freaking world.
The seeds carried by the sudden deluge of blockchain and cryptocurrency speculation have just been laid. Already flowers are starting to appear giving a preview of what may be possible soon for end users. It's amazing how quickly they have taken root, and I am sure that there will be an Amazon (or ten or hundred) that'll bloom and grow atop this new technology soon.
Usually biographies humanize their subjects, but in this case, Bezos has essentially become a god in my eyes. An angry god to be sure, and one that knows the devil is in the details.
Beyond Bezos though, what really struck and stuck with me, was how the book perfectly captured the anxiety and fear that permeated the markets during the bear cycle and ultimate dot.com bubble pop back in 2000.
At that time Amazon's stock fell to less than $10, losing hundreds of millions of dollars for shareholders and employees. And they were getting *trashed* in the media.
Amazon's then treasurer summed up the fear and anxiety perfectly: "The most anxiety-inducing thing about [the Wall Street bears and negative media] was that the risk [of going to zero] was a function of perception and not the reality."
The real danger was that the negative media might turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that strain of bearish thinking actually took hold for awhile. Large numbers of people illogically thought the Internet revolution and all its invention would just disappear.
It feels like this history is rhyming again today as the crypto sector has just lost hundreds of billions off its network value virtually overnight.
The bears and perma-critics are smugly declaring defeat for cryptocurrencies. Many retail investors probably didn't know anything about the underlying tech so they probably think crypto dead too.
But just as Amazon and its cohort of other dot.com bubble survivors have shown, these sorts of revolutions have a way of upending short-term criticism over the long run. As the internet continues to prove, it has had an extremely powerful non-linear impact on every single other sector.
Amazon used the power of the internet to provide customers - end users - with a level of instant, personalized satisfaction that was impossible before it. That in turn has helped it become a real contender to become the everything store for the whole freaking world.
The seeds carried by the sudden deluge of blockchain and cryptocurrency speculation have just been laid. Already flowers are starting to appear giving a preview of what may be possible soon for end users. It's amazing how quickly they have taken root, and I am sure that there will be an Amazon (or ten or hundred) that'll bloom and grow atop this new technology soon.
2018년 2월 5일 월요일
Paul Martino's Advice for Cent
I was re-listening to one of my favorite podcasts of 2017, the Paul Martino episode on the Software Engineering Daily podcast that I included in my lists of all things good the other day.
In the episode Paul recounts a few of the mis-steps he and his team made working on an early, initially successfull, but ultimately failed social networking site called Tribe.
Paul gives listeners a full five-course meal of food for thought, but what really grabbed my attention was this: "[Tribe] didn't pay any attention to curating who their initial user base was."
The initial users themselves set the tone for the site, and usually earlier than many would expect. Once set, it is nearly impossible to alter.
In Tribe's case, they got all the 'burning man' users that were purged enmasse from Friendster. In the end, this super alternative crowd was no match for *that* social network that started with a highly curated group of users from the Ivy League.
Cent of course is my favorite site these days. It is a little less than half a year old (154 days to be precise) and based on the number of responses-per-bounty, it's user base is growing into a globally diverse group.
But like Tribe before it, Cent seems open to accepting everyone. Since any account can upvote anyone else, basically everyone who posts a response gets a piece of the bounty.
If we were a commons, everyone would be starving. Cent is, in effect, curating poverty.
As fellow Centian @paulkay put it: It's just too damn hard to earn beer money on Cent.
Cent isn't the only blockchain-based app or site to pay out crypto for user generated work either. Earn and Steemit are more popular and successful. Despite the shortcommings of those sites, several of their users bring in very large returns.
Add to that Earn's highly selective, curated lists and the fact that it has convinced a bunch of really big names to sign up and the differences become clear.
Cent's novelty is very exciting to be sure, but passionate users will leave soon if there are sites that provide better incentives.
As I have proposed elsewhere, I believe there is a novel way to solve this issue: institute a new user-class called Centurions, who alone have the ability to upvote or downvote responses.
They would become the keepers of the site, and since upvoters receive 10% of each bounty, they would have a financial incentive to continue improving the site and user experience.
Most responses would still receive a nominal payout for their contibutions, but Centurions would ensure that users receive larger portions of bounties by guaranteeing the majority of upvotes go to "higher quality" posts. This would provide a great benefit to bounty setters. The higher payouts would also help draw in new users. New users would raise the overall calibre of responses and incentivize people to post more bounties.
Allowing each user to see which posts each Centurion has upvoted (like Disqus upvotes) would further help improve the overall experience.
And anyone who makes a certain number of posts that receive a certain number of upvotes would become a Centurion, kind of like a decentralized knighting. Over time those minimum criteria would increase as a way to ensure that quality standards remain high.
Lastly, when it comes time to airdrop CENT tokens, by introducing the Centurion class it should be easier to find clear metrics by which to determine who contributed the most to the site. A token-curated-registry approach could then be implemented so that anyone willing to temporarily stake their credentials could apply.
Cent, together with Centurions, would be curating constantly improving users who contribute responses of increasing quality.
Cent needs to start curating quality. Here's hoping they do.
In the episode Paul recounts a few of the mis-steps he and his team made working on an early, initially successfull, but ultimately failed social networking site called Tribe.
Paul gives listeners a full five-course meal of food for thought, but what really grabbed my attention was this: "[Tribe] didn't pay any attention to curating who their initial user base was."
The initial users themselves set the tone for the site, and usually earlier than many would expect. Once set, it is nearly impossible to alter.
In Tribe's case, they got all the 'burning man' users that were purged enmasse from Friendster. In the end, this super alternative crowd was no match for *that* social network that started with a highly curated group of users from the Ivy League.
Cent of course is my favorite site these days. It is a little less than half a year old (154 days to be precise) and based on the number of responses-per-bounty, it's user base is growing into a globally diverse group.
But like Tribe before it, Cent seems open to accepting everyone. Since any account can upvote anyone else, basically everyone who posts a response gets a piece of the bounty.
If we were a commons, everyone would be starving. Cent is, in effect, curating poverty.
As fellow Centian @paulkay put it: It's just too damn hard to earn beer money on Cent.
Cent isn't the only blockchain-based app or site to pay out crypto for user generated work either. Earn and Steemit are more popular and successful. Despite the shortcommings of those sites, several of their users bring in very large returns.
Add to that Earn's highly selective, curated lists and the fact that it has convinced a bunch of really big names to sign up and the differences become clear.
Cent's novelty is very exciting to be sure, but passionate users will leave soon if there are sites that provide better incentives.
As I have proposed elsewhere, I believe there is a novel way to solve this issue: institute a new user-class called Centurions, who alone have the ability to upvote or downvote responses.
They would become the keepers of the site, and since upvoters receive 10% of each bounty, they would have a financial incentive to continue improving the site and user experience.
Most responses would still receive a nominal payout for their contibutions, but Centurions would ensure that users receive larger portions of bounties by guaranteeing the majority of upvotes go to "higher quality" posts. This would provide a great benefit to bounty setters. The higher payouts would also help draw in new users. New users would raise the overall calibre of responses and incentivize people to post more bounties.
Allowing each user to see which posts each Centurion has upvoted (like Disqus upvotes) would further help improve the overall experience.
And anyone who makes a certain number of posts that receive a certain number of upvotes would become a Centurion, kind of like a decentralized knighting. Over time those minimum criteria would increase as a way to ensure that quality standards remain high.
Lastly, when it comes time to airdrop CENT tokens, by introducing the Centurion class it should be easier to find clear metrics by which to determine who contributed the most to the site. A token-curated-registry approach could then be implemented so that anyone willing to temporarily stake their credentials could apply.
Cent, together with Centurions, would be curating constantly improving users who contribute responses of increasing quality.
Cent needs to start curating quality. Here's hoping they do.
2018년 2월 2일 금요일
BTFD & BUIDL
For anyone that's been active in cryptoland for more than a minute has most definitely ridden the coaster of dips. Probaby more than a few times too.
Over the past few days that coaster has really been doing work. I'm sure a lot of coiners have lost their expensive lunches. And you probably still feel sick.
But for more experienced coiners, the dips barely register as a tickle in their tummy. As Chris Burniske said, living through these types of market panics become badges of honor in cryptoland.
On top of that, though, they are amazing buying opportunities. You can help offset losses by buying the dips before they tick up again. They tend to be the most valuable investments in the long run.
That said, you need to pick the coins that best represent solid tech and future development. Of course there is Bitcoin Core, but the Ethereum community is really putting in work buidling [sic] the future out with DEXs, StakeTree, Cipher mobile browser, Cent, Cryptokitties and several other projects that you can use today.
'Buy what you know' was the dominant investment adage back in the '80s and it is my contention that it should be the basis of most investments in crypto today.
So BTFD (buy the fucking dip) and develop an investment bias for teams that BUIDL.
Over the past few days that coaster has really been doing work. I'm sure a lot of coiners have lost their expensive lunches. And you probably still feel sick.
But for more experienced coiners, the dips barely register as a tickle in their tummy. As Chris Burniske said, living through these types of market panics become badges of honor in cryptoland.
On top of that, though, they are amazing buying opportunities. You can help offset losses by buying the dips before they tick up again. They tend to be the most valuable investments in the long run.
That said, you need to pick the coins that best represent solid tech and future development. Of course there is Bitcoin Core, but the Ethereum community is really putting in work buidling [sic] the future out with DEXs, StakeTree, Cipher mobile browser, Cent, Cryptokitties and several other projects that you can use today.
'Buy what you know' was the dominant investment adage back in the '80s and it is my contention that it should be the basis of most investments in crypto today.
So BTFD (buy the fucking dip) and develop an investment bias for teams that BUIDL.
2018년 2월 1일 목요일
Elements of a Bounty
I have been thinking a lot about bounties these days.
What has been most surprising - although in hindsight it shouldn't have been - is how many people active in the crypto and blockchain space hear one thing when they hear or think of a bounty.
They think of a bug bounty - a specific task that has one winning response.
And then they code for that.
Why that is surprising in a regrettable sense is simple: they are coding the corresponding smart contract too tight. In other words, they should code for a wider array of potential use cases.
This is what Max Brody and Cameron have done with Cent. They have really re-imagined the bounty, and the use cases of their more widely thought bounty contract have grown into the double digits.
I can fully appreciate that now.
But that doesn't mean I can't learn anything from thinkers still stuck in an old paradigm.
On the contrary, I was able to learn the proper taxonomy of a bounty yesterday reading a series of articles. There are four (4) elements of a bounty:
What has been most surprising - although in hindsight it shouldn't have been - is how many people active in the crypto and blockchain space hear one thing when they hear or think of a bounty.
They think of a bug bounty - a specific task that has one winning response.
And then they code for that.
Why that is surprising in a regrettable sense is simple: they are coding the corresponding smart contract too tight. In other words, they should code for a wider array of potential use cases.
This is what Max Brody and Cameron have done with Cent. They have really re-imagined the bounty, and the use cases of their more widely thought bounty contract have grown into the double digits.
I can fully appreciate that now.
But that doesn't mean I can't learn anything from thinkers still stuck in an old paradigm.
On the contrary, I was able to learn the proper taxonomy of a bounty yesterday reading a series of articles. There are four (4) elements of a bounty:
- Issuance
- Fulfillment
- Acceptance
- Payment
- Invitation to Bid (ITB)
- Bids
- Ranking
- Rank-based payment
In construction, ITBs are essentially invitations made to contractors to design a new piece of infrastructure. Often, to compensate each bidder for the time and resources required to put together a proper bid, a trivial sum will be provided to those who issue bids that are not initially disqualified.
Each question on Cent is an ITB. Users that submit bids that provide value either to the original poster or any other user can be rewarded with a portion of the bounty by being up-voted. Less effort is wasted (i.e. uncompensated) and more value is created, for multiple parties.
Such an incentive structure, as basic and simple as it is, can be used for all types of cases outside of trying to identify bugs in some code.
Cent still has a long way to go, but it is important to highlight that it has made possible something that really wasn't possible prior to it's creation. And that is probably why I can't stop thinking about it.
Each question on Cent is an ITB. Users that submit bids that provide value either to the original poster or any other user can be rewarded with a portion of the bounty by being up-voted. Less effort is wasted (i.e. uncompensated) and more value is created, for multiple parties.
Such an incentive structure, as basic and simple as it is, can be used for all types of cases outside of trying to identify bugs in some code.
Cent still has a long way to go, but it is important to highlight that it has made possible something that really wasn't possible prior to it's creation. And that is probably why I can't stop thinking about it.
2018년 1월 29일 월요일
Dogfooding
So just after writing about 'dogfooding' yesterday, I discovered an amazing example running live on the Ethereum mainnet right now. It's called StakeTree and it is pretty special.
It fell into my lap as soon as I opened one of my favorite Monday morning email newsletters: Token Economy.
I am subscribed to about six email newsletters that I can't live without:
It fell into my lap as soon as I opened one of my favorite Monday morning email newsletters: Token Economy.
I am subscribed to about six email newsletters that I can't live without:
- Stratechery
- Hotpod
- Token Economy
- 스타트업위클리 (Startup Weekly)
- Exponential View
- Benedict Evan's Newsletter
Up until today the first two newsletters were the only ones that let users pay them. And of course the only way to pay was with a credit card.
Credit cards are sorta kinda convenient for users, but they are terrible for anyone that accepts them, since they have to eat multiple non-trivial charges for *every* transaction they receive. Not only is there a roughly $0.30 fixed fee, but there is an additional fee of anywhere from 1.5% to 3.5% of the total amount charged!
Now the two gentlemen behind Token Economy (@stefanobernardi and @yanroux) have finally decided not only to give readers a way to pay them, but they made the bold move to eschew traditional credit card payments for ETH payments instead. StakeTree is a new Business-as-a-Tool (BaaT) that, simply put, is a smart contract-powered Kickstarter Drip on Ethereum.
Those who want to support Token Economy, for example, need only open the Token Economy Drip fund page on StakeTree using their Cipher browser on mobile or metamask enabled chrome browser on desktop, enter their desired ETH suppprt level and click send. That's it. The StakeTree Drip smart contract then trustlessly ensures 10% of your payment is distributed to Token Economy each week for the next 10 weeks. The amount distributed and the drip period are also variable I believe.
As I mentioned yesterday, the BaaT value is something I really see as taking hold in the short-term. @nieldr, the creator of StakeTree, is using StakeTree to crowdsource support for further development. That's dogfooding at its finest and he's already received over 6 ETH. Token Economy has received 5.69 ETH or almost USD 7,000 in under 24 hours! I really think that the StakeTree BaaT will be hitting a lot of home runs for a lot of people in the near future.
The rate of development in the Ethereum ecosystem is quite amazing. Really useful, decentralized, trustless tools like StakeTree are starting to come to market now that are proving *We* will gladly pay gas to power the underlying network that enables these trustless dapps, but that *We* don't need intermediaries and middle-men taking large percentages of our money anymore.
I cannot wait to *use* the many new BaaTs that are about to hit the market. If everything goes right, I think we will see an innovative blogging BaaT in the near future that will incorporate a very simple, but powerful cryptoeconomic incentive design atop a few dead simple smart contracts. It will be a perfect compliment (I think at least) to what the boys behind Cent have been doing.
In the meantime, stay sluggin'.
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