As I've said many times before, my responses to bounties on Cent are basically ready-made blog posts. My response today to a bounty asking how fellow Centians first fell down the proverbial crypto rabbit hole is just another example. I hope you enjoy.
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It seems that most people differentiate between when they first heard of crypto versus when they actually fell down the so-called crypto rabbit hole – well, I’m no different.
I first heard of BTC sometime back in 2014. At the time a small group of work buddies and I would gather every morning at a café in downtown Gangnam to shoot the shit. One buddy had already bought some BTC (I think because of an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience that Andreas had appeared on) and he managed to get a few others to speculate, but not me. Passive wealth acquisition didn’t much interest me then, and still doesn’t tbh.
By the middle of 2015, most of the original morning coffee group had moved on to the next phases of their lives and careers, but one buddy who invested in BTC at the behest of our mutual friend in 2014 remained. In lieu of morning coffee, we began taking afternoon strolls where we would talk about this or that. I remember one walk on a brisk autumn afternoon in mid-October in particular – that’s when my friend asked me if I’d heard of Ethereum. I hadn’t. And then he mentioned smart contracts.
That started everything. I spent the rest of that afternoon pulling up what articles I could find on Ethereum and smart contracts (smart contracts!!). But before hopping on the company shuttle and heading home for the day, I made the discovery that ultimately ended up pushing me head first down that damned crypto rabbit hole. There was a very striking name that was mentioned across a few separate articles that had caught my eye: that name was Vinay Gupta.
A quick google search of Vinay resulted in a link to an episode he’d done on The Future Thinkers Podcast. I must have listened to that episode at least 6 times before somehow falling asleep. Tbh, I’m not sure I every really woke up. I hope I never do ;)
2018년 8월 13일 월요일
2018년 4월 26일 목요일
CoinJournal Article on Cent
It's been a busy morning.
Overnight, the wonderful Ian Demartino wrote a stellar article [link] on the goodness that's been going on over at Cent.
Cent's Twitter blew up, of course. Followers have (finally) crossed the 1,000 person threshold, and a whole bunch of noteworthy names like Liad Shababo (@L1AD), Dr. Corey Petty from The Bitcoin Podcast and Jake Brukhman have been showing love.
Being Centurion No.1 and a bleeding heart supporter of Cent for a while now, it is awesome to finally see others who get Cent like the whole team and I have.
Validation: It's so important to the future success of anything. Here's to much validation and greater success than any of us can even imagine.
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 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'.
2018년 1월 23일 화요일
Living Economics Experiments
I read the Nathaniel Popper piece that appeared in todays NYT, and as always it was great. The man regularly offers up the most entertaining, unbiased perspectives on the frothiest, most exciting sector since the dotcom boom and bust.
When I read something good, there are usually a few lines that I end up re-reading a few times. That way they end up sticking with me long after I close the tab or shut the book. This time was no different.
I have been thinking a lot about the simplistic power well designed cryptoeconomic incentive architectures will be able to wield lately, so my red hot embers were stoked when I read, "..virtual currencies are all living economics experiments, testing how different sorts of incentives create different behaviors."
It is precisely this economic incentive aspect of all crytpoassets - not just cryptocurrencies, but cryptocommodities, cryptotokens, and cryptocollectibles as well - that I think will start to draw more and more attention to itself and away from the ICO bubble that is starting to slide down the slope of a waning crecent moon.
Currently Bitcoin, with its own carrot and stick incentive strucure built into and around the Proof of Work (PoW) consenus mechanism, is the first, most prominent example of a cryptoeconomic incentive architecture performing in the wild, but as Nathaniel said, "...these incentives don’t always work as expected. That uncertainty is what makes it so interesting to watch — and to report on."
From out of this uncertainty I believe that there are many more low hanging fruit of much simpler and more easily approachable incentive structures that people will start to look for, adopt and actually use. A good, but still incomplete example can be found in a Dapp called Cent.
Cent offers a dead simple concept: any user with an email and ethereum wallet address responds to questions or posts. Based on the portion of upvotes their specific response receives by the community, they receive a corresponding share of the original bounty that was attached to the prompt or question as a way to incentivize responses in the first place. Super simple, and it works, er, sort of.
But it is still early days, and much, much more is still left to come. So stay plugged in my friends.
When I read something good, there are usually a few lines that I end up re-reading a few times. That way they end up sticking with me long after I close the tab or shut the book. This time was no different.
I have been thinking a lot about the simplistic power well designed cryptoeconomic incentive architectures will be able to wield lately, so my red hot embers were stoked when I read, "..virtual currencies are all living economics experiments, testing how different sorts of incentives create different behaviors."
It is precisely this economic incentive aspect of all crytpoassets - not just cryptocurrencies, but cryptocommodities, cryptotokens, and cryptocollectibles as well - that I think will start to draw more and more attention to itself and away from the ICO bubble that is starting to slide down the slope of a waning crecent moon.
Currently Bitcoin, with its own carrot and stick incentive strucure built into and around the Proof of Work (PoW) consenus mechanism, is the first, most prominent example of a cryptoeconomic incentive architecture performing in the wild, but as Nathaniel said, "...these incentives don’t always work as expected. That uncertainty is what makes it so interesting to watch — and to report on."
From out of this uncertainty I believe that there are many more low hanging fruit of much simpler and more easily approachable incentive structures that people will start to look for, adopt and actually use. A good, but still incomplete example can be found in a Dapp called Cent.
Cent offers a dead simple concept: any user with an email and ethereum wallet address responds to questions or posts. Based on the portion of upvotes their specific response receives by the community, they receive a corresponding share of the original bounty that was attached to the prompt or question as a way to incentivize responses in the first place. Super simple, and it works, er, sort of.
But it is still early days, and much, much more is still left to come. So stay plugged in my friends.
2017년 12월 31일 일요일
A Cryptoeconomic Solution for Modern Oppression
Today there is nothing as oppressive as the expectation of unremunerated attention.
Attention should be understood here as a temporary donation of, at the very least, one's time. This presupposes that actions, objects, programs or messages that attract and capture the attention and time of others *do not* constitute a sufficiently compensatory benefit.
Uncompensated attention should cease to be an assumed expectation or requirement to engage in atomic experiences (e.g. reading or commenting on blogs, voting in elections). Instead, inducing or attracting said attention in exchange for *any* form of acceptable remuneration should be pursued. In my view this is only possible by adopting and applying newly emergent economic incentive architectures facilitated by tools provisioned by cryptoassets and blockchain technology (particularly with regards to 'Smart Contracts'). By pursuing such a strategy we seek to emancipate our global citizenzry from the de facto compulsion to relinquish and forfeit valuable personal time and information in exchange for unremunerated experiences.
Thus, my claim is as follows: All experiences should be *potentially* remunerative.
As the title of this post indicates, we are seeking a cryptoeconomic solution - or at the very least an orientation towards a solution - to the problem of unremunerated attention. It may be helpful if we provide a brief definition here. Cryptoeconomics should be understood as an emerging field of study of how we use digital incentives to drive specific resources and behaviors on decentralized networks that lead to some globally desired result such as security or network effects. There is a site called Cent that has been accessible to anyone around the world with an internet connection at beta.cent.co that is conducting an extremely novel and at the same time deceptively simple cryptoeconomic experiment.
First of all, despite only being around for three months or so, Cent has already established itself as a community - to be sure it is still small by modern internet standards. It aspires to be the de(cent)ralized reddit-meets-quora that in(cent)ivizes users by way of Ether (ETH) bounties. Users pose questions or requests to the community that, crucially, carry with them a set bounty denominated in ETH to incentivize as many respondants as possible, and based on the number of upvotes respondants get from other respondants, they will receive a proportional share of that bounty. The key innovation here is that the payout is carried out by a Smart Contract that runs on the Ethereum network - after a question is submitted it triggers an unstoppable automatic application wherein a pre-set timer begins its countdown with payouts released automatically as soon as the bounty period expires.
So to summarize: Cent allows users to offer ETH (digital incentive) in order to drive other users to provide quality responses vying for that Ether which attracts new users who provide ever more quality responses and pose new questions with bounties to attract new users repeat ad infinitum. They have bootstrapped an active community where users are referred to as Centians. Hundreds of bounties have been set and respondants have received thousands of dollars worth of ETH for their attention. Users even receive a portion of the bounty simply for either upvoting or downvoting responses. This is an *almost* perfectly structured incentive architecture. Almost.
The shortcommings - in my view - stem from how the question/bounty-posing feature has been incentivized - or the lack thereof - and the potential for abuse and gaming of the system as it is set up today. Whilst there may be marginal benefit in being able to relatively reliably source a certain amount of responses, it is a shame that there is no way to at least subsidize bounty setters. As a result bounty values have remained trivial, ranging between $3~20 (relative to the given value of ETH to USD at the time a question/bounty is set). Trivial bounties beget half-hearted responses.
Additionally, there is the growing problem of users setting up multiple accounts to game the system and win a larger share of the bounty. There is currently no mechanism in place to prevent someone from setting up multiple accounts in order to game the system by upvoting their own posts and downvoting others. It isn't hard to imagine even passionate contributers becomming frustrated over time if their attention is undercompensated whilst scammers are receiving 3~5x more, at least. Of course if these issues are not addressed they will most likely inhibit any real growth for Cent and its community. Fellow Centian @Maxsterly has already voiced frustration regarding the inability to subsidize question/bounty-setters and multiple users including @dreambig and @soothsayer have complained about the scammers with multiple accounts. Operating a system based off of decentralized logic makes it more difficult - but not impossible - to minimize or prevent such behaviour.
So to conclude I would like to propose a few potential novel solutions:
Firstly, Cent should provide the option for users to 'tip' bounties that they have an interest in. Tips could be split 50:50 between a) the user who set the bounty and b) the bounty itself by adding to it thus incentivizing better responses.
Secondly, Cent should designate those Centians who have been active and provided thoughtful responses over time as arbiters of up upvoting; create a class of 'Centurions' if you will. This will a) eliminate the negative impact that gamers could and have had whilst b) ensuring that Centians who provide original and thoughtful responses are duly compensated. Of course there should be a mechanism created that allows newer Centians to become Centurions as well. A sufficiently decentralized approach could be setting up a hard threshold. Say that if a Centian receives over 100 upvotes across a minimum of at least 5 posts then they are automatically upgraded to Centurion status.
Projects like Cent are paving the way forward towards a very exciting future. The creators behind Cent deserve a lot of praise and all the support they need. Hopefully the proposed improvements I have included may be of some assistance in creating not just a better user experience on Cent, but a better future for everyone around the world.
Attention should be understood here as a temporary donation of, at the very least, one's time. This presupposes that actions, objects, programs or messages that attract and capture the attention and time of others *do not* constitute a sufficiently compensatory benefit.
Uncompensated attention should cease to be an assumed expectation or requirement to engage in atomic experiences (e.g. reading or commenting on blogs, voting in elections). Instead, inducing or attracting said attention in exchange for *any* form of acceptable remuneration should be pursued. In my view this is only possible by adopting and applying newly emergent economic incentive architectures facilitated by tools provisioned by cryptoassets and blockchain technology (particularly with regards to 'Smart Contracts'). By pursuing such a strategy we seek to emancipate our global citizenzry from the de facto compulsion to relinquish and forfeit valuable personal time and information in exchange for unremunerated experiences.
Thus, my claim is as follows: All experiences should be *potentially* remunerative.
As the title of this post indicates, we are seeking a cryptoeconomic solution - or at the very least an orientation towards a solution - to the problem of unremunerated attention. It may be helpful if we provide a brief definition here. Cryptoeconomics should be understood as an emerging field of study of how we use digital incentives to drive specific resources and behaviors on decentralized networks that lead to some globally desired result such as security or network effects. There is a site called Cent that has been accessible to anyone around the world with an internet connection at beta.cent.co that is conducting an extremely novel and at the same time deceptively simple cryptoeconomic experiment.
First of all, despite only being around for three months or so, Cent has already established itself as a community - to be sure it is still small by modern internet standards. It aspires to be the de(cent)ralized reddit-meets-quora that in(cent)ivizes users by way of Ether (ETH) bounties. Users pose questions or requests to the community that, crucially, carry with them a set bounty denominated in ETH to incentivize as many respondants as possible, and based on the number of upvotes respondants get from other respondants, they will receive a proportional share of that bounty. The key innovation here is that the payout is carried out by a Smart Contract that runs on the Ethereum network - after a question is submitted it triggers an unstoppable automatic application wherein a pre-set timer begins its countdown with payouts released automatically as soon as the bounty period expires.
So to summarize: Cent allows users to offer ETH (digital incentive) in order to drive other users to provide quality responses vying for that Ether which attracts new users who provide ever more quality responses and pose new questions with bounties to attract new users repeat ad infinitum. They have bootstrapped an active community where users are referred to as Centians. Hundreds of bounties have been set and respondants have received thousands of dollars worth of ETH for their attention. Users even receive a portion of the bounty simply for either upvoting or downvoting responses. This is an *almost* perfectly structured incentive architecture. Almost.
The shortcommings - in my view - stem from how the question/bounty-posing feature has been incentivized - or the lack thereof - and the potential for abuse and gaming of the system as it is set up today. Whilst there may be marginal benefit in being able to relatively reliably source a certain amount of responses, it is a shame that there is no way to at least subsidize bounty setters. As a result bounty values have remained trivial, ranging between $3~20 (relative to the given value of ETH to USD at the time a question/bounty is set). Trivial bounties beget half-hearted responses.
Additionally, there is the growing problem of users setting up multiple accounts to game the system and win a larger share of the bounty. There is currently no mechanism in place to prevent someone from setting up multiple accounts in order to game the system by upvoting their own posts and downvoting others. It isn't hard to imagine even passionate contributers becomming frustrated over time if their attention is undercompensated whilst scammers are receiving 3~5x more, at least. Of course if these issues are not addressed they will most likely inhibit any real growth for Cent and its community. Fellow Centian @Maxsterly has already voiced frustration regarding the inability to subsidize question/bounty-setters and multiple users including @dreambig and @soothsayer have complained about the scammers with multiple accounts. Operating a system based off of decentralized logic makes it more difficult - but not impossible - to minimize or prevent such behaviour.
So to conclude I would like to propose a few potential novel solutions:
Firstly, Cent should provide the option for users to 'tip' bounties that they have an interest in. Tips could be split 50:50 between a) the user who set the bounty and b) the bounty itself by adding to it thus incentivizing better responses.
Secondly, Cent should designate those Centians who have been active and provided thoughtful responses over time as arbiters of up upvoting; create a class of 'Centurions' if you will. This will a) eliminate the negative impact that gamers could and have had whilst b) ensuring that Centians who provide original and thoughtful responses are duly compensated. Of course there should be a mechanism created that allows newer Centians to become Centurions as well. A sufficiently decentralized approach could be setting up a hard threshold. Say that if a Centian receives over 100 upvotes across a minimum of at least 5 posts then they are automatically upgraded to Centurion status.
Projects like Cent are paving the way forward towards a very exciting future. The creators behind Cent deserve a lot of praise and all the support they need. Hopefully the proposed improvements I have included may be of some assistance in creating not just a better user experience on Cent, but a better future for everyone around the world.
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