Ducky:
Update
Update on product and token utility (in our opinion, these go hand in hand and are 2 sides of the same coin). All of the below should be taken as possibilities and concepts that need to be vetted through a combination of product adoption and technical feasibility. For example, there is no purpose in building out a derivative function if the primary function has not seen usage or adoption on the platform.
Product Feature
On the product side, we have designed and are building the next feature, a powerful fundraising tool for organizations on the Spring directory. We’re calling it “Challenges” internally, and is a feature that allows organizations to raise funding based on whether an event happens (could be a stunt being completed, could be a software team hitting a milestone, etc).
Supporters who want to see this event happen, can contribute to the smart contract as a way to increase the incentive, and if the event happens, money is disbursed to the pre-designated beneficiary. If the event does not happen, supporters get a refund which they can claim. Augur will serve as the oracle, and each campaign will have an associated Augur market. We will leverage Augur as the arbiter to decide whether funds go to the beneficiary, or if there should be a refund.
The first round of “Challenges” that will be released at launch in 4-6 weeks include the following campaigns (wording may change as we finalize in next few weeks) which are focused on ETH2.0 projects:
Funny: If Vitalik Buterin wears a suit (a traditional Western suit with tie) in public any time between Mar 1 2019 and May 31 2019, pledged funds will go to Prysmatic Labs and ChainSafe
Milestone based: If Uniswap 30-days volume surpasses 100,000 ETH as reported by State of the Dapps, they will unlock pledged funds
Milestone based: If Cryptoeconomics.study releases chapters 1-4 of their comprehensive course on Ethereum development, free to the public by July 1 2019, they will unlock pledged funds
Milestone based: If Prysmatic Labs releases a Beacon Chain testnet for live public use, before May 31 2019, they will unlock pledged funds
Milestone based: If ChainSafe announce and releases a single client Beacon Chain testnet for public use by May 31 2019, they will unlock pledged funds
There is an initial focus on ETH 2.0 projects because there are a lot of great people and teams out there who just want to build great things without worrying about their next paycheck. Not every project needs an ICO, not every team needs a business model, and not every piece of software needs a full team or an employer. However, aligned incentives between parties with vested interests such the coordination between: 1) open source developers improving the scalability of Ethereum to working on new improvement protocols (EIPs) with 2) businesses struggling to find scalability solutions and discover new uses cases for Ethereum would greatly improve the adoption of Ethereum ecosystem as a whole and ultimately, the progress of Web 3.0.
As we have seen in the most recent debacle with the “rage quitting” of Afri Shoesdon, Ethereum development has a massive problem that's brewing for some time. There is a lack of an adequate platform for funding and governance to occur. Most of the developers performing the most crucial functions towards to advancement of the Ethereum protocol do so out of a sense of responsibility, with minimal compensation and many other lucrative opportunities. “Challenges” serves as the critically needed fundraising platform that has accountability built into the grant making and funding process. Funds would only be released when milestones are reached - in essence, a simple mini-DAICO implementation, but without the unnecessary coin.
If we can get traction on this prototype, we envision innumerable possibilities and we hope to unleash the creativity of the community to create amazing challenges to fund high impact organizations -- both lighthearted challenges, and serious milestones meant to show the power of impact & proof based fundraising.
Token Utility
On the token utility side, the TRST token undergirds the ecosystem and is designed as an essential catalyst that makes the product more robust, facilitates trust among the trustless, and enables the product to become more decentralized. From the beginning, we described Trustcoins (symbol: TRST) as a means to facilitate trust across our network of products. In the context of Spring and the “Challenges” product feature, the current token utility is focused on facilitating the creation of a world class fundraising platform where all parties are better served and facilitates the following aspects:
Curation by the token holder community which enables a decentralized way to ensure long term quality and standards. This also leverages wisdom of the token holder crowd to find the best organizations and fundraising campaigns
Tools to help Fundraisers (the beneficiaries) be more effective and efficient such that we are the go-to place for fundraising on both web2.0 and web3.0 universes, for the most reputable organizations and individuals around the world
Tools and features that meet the needs of Donors: cater to donors’ desire for accountability & transparency, merit & impact based funding
Long term sustainability of the platform through community decision making on where to charge fees, how to deploy those fees, and how to attract top curators and fundraisers.
Detailed potential features we are exploring:
Curation
Curation is critical because the quality of projects and organizations is a key ingredient that attract high quality donors and contributors.
Serves as a mechanism to ensure the best campaigns raise funding from our platform; good projects attract additional strong projects and donors
Community of token holders vet quality of organizations/ individuals seeking to raise funds and facilitates trust
Curation enables the potential of a reward mechanism for those community members that conduct due diligence which ensures a high quality platform
Token Usecase: Token holders have the responsibility to curate worthy projects to ensure the integrity of the platform and may stake TRST in support for the organizations they have vetted. In the initial version of the staking hub, TRST token holders will be able to stake TRST as a way to vote and curate those fundraising organizations they feel should be more visible on the website. Organizations that receive TRST staking will be more prominent on our website.
Token Usecase: If the platform gains traction, it will be re-designed for greater decentralization where WeTrust removes itself from the listing process and token holders become responsible for accepting or rejecting applicants for listing on the platform. Organizations would need to stake TRST in order to apply, and if the community determines there has been a violation of a future community governance Constitution, they would lose their stake. Since this mechanism would be created in the future and be dependent on the platform’s acceptance, we would incorporate the latest governance advances when building.
Token Usecase: For token holders who help onboard fundraising organizations, curate campaigns, etc., fees could be generated on the platform which could be disbursed for token holders’ work in identifying, researching, and conducting due diligence to find the most meaningful organizations and campaigns. Token holders’ motivation to stake their TRST will be similar as the motivation for affiliate marketers and Grant writers. By being incentivized with rewards, we believe stakers will be motivated to find the most legitimate and exciting fundraising campaigns, advocate for, and spread the word on behalf of the causes for which they have indicated support and staked. Well thought out campaigns will get more support, and less reputable, dubious high-risk campaigns will receive less support from the community. Formula for rewards may take into account staking duration, with a greater reward proportion for those who help the platform grow in the long term.
Our rationale for implementing a sta
king feature for Trustcoin is as follows: Community for each non-profit will be improved. Empirical evidence has shown that personalized messaging and profiles that elicit an emotional response generate the greatest donation revenue. Successful examples of this concept in action today include GoFundMe, Movember, Facebook Donations, Classy Customers, and Change.org.. In the WeTrust’s case, we are trying something new - to allow a worldwide community to participate in the evangelizing of important issues challenging the world today.
Fundraisers
We envision hundreds and thousands of individuals and organizations launching campaigns to raise funds on our platform.
Token Usecase: As there will be numerous competition for attention, fundraisers will have the opportunity to use TRST token to improve their visibility on the platform; we will need to be nuanced so the visibility is not just affected by the amount of TRST, but also influenced by the curation mechanism
Token Usecase: Supporters may also unilaterally contribute TRST to increase visibility of the fundraising organization as an alternative way to show support
Token Usecase: various daily/ weekly placements or newsletter placements that may be auctioned to fundraising organizations
Token Usecase: additional functionality in fundraiser profiles such as multi-language support, tools to engage with supporters etc. to be determined based on demand
Donors
A way for donors to engage and reward donors in non-monetary ways for being part of the community
Ensuring donor preferences are well understood and reflected in the product (e.g., accountability on fundraising, transparency)
Long term sustainability
The token utility described in the above sections are all designed to foster long term sustainability and to build a more engaged community. Token holders ultimately will have the ability to stake tokens and participate in the governance and selection process of fundraising organizations on the platform. This creates a vested, long term interest in the wellbeing and prosperity of the platform. By vetting and ensuring strong quality of fundraisers on the platform, token holders choose the fee amounts and how fees are deployed.
The WeTrust team is leading the development of the platform, however, it has always been the vision to transition the platform to become decentralized, autonomous, and self-sustaining in the long run. If the fundraising platform gains traction, we will explore a mechanism to poll the community of tokenholders and determine whether there should be fees introduced on the platform. The fee amount and the usage of the fees will be determined together with the broader community with the goal of ensuring long term success of the platform and sustainable development of the platform. Together, we can determine if it is more productive for fees to be rewarded to top curators, used to buy and remove TRST from the supply, pay for software development bounties -- perhaps a combination of these, or something completely different.
What’s happening immediately? Phase 1 of Staking is launching within the next 2 weeks, and here’s how it works:
A WeTrust Spring user who holds TRST goes onto our platform and locks their tokens in a smart contract for a period of time which they can set (currently up to a maximum of one year).
The user selects from a list of organizations those that they wish to support by staking their TRST. One can support organizations already listed on Spring, or use TRST to nominate organizations that are not yet in our directory. This support signals to the organization its value within the cryptocurrency community, and motivates them to learn about and onboard into our platform.
The organizations will be listed on the platform according to a quality score that takes into account the support received from the community and its popularity amongst donors.
After the staking period has elapsed, the user can withdraw their TRST and use it in other places: to support another organization, participate in a Trusted Lending Circle, etc. Alternately, the user can continue staking their TRST to the same organization for further support.
With this new staking function, our users can use TRST to directly decide which organization will garner the most attention and be in the best position to receive donations. As described above, in the first iteration of this staking feature users will be able to use their TRST to promote the organizations they believe in and trust. Upon release of this staking feature, only organizations meeting a minimum threshold of TRST staked to their cause will be listed on our platform, with any additional tokens staked determining the organization’s placement on the Spring website. In future releases, we will add features that allow users to stake their TRST to support their favorite organizations in other ways, e.g., featuring them in our biweekly email newsletters.
By allowing TRST to be staked on the Spring platform, we are advancing our goals on multiple fronts:
Making Charitable Giving More Personable - Our users will now not only be contributing financially to the causes they care about, but will also be directly involved in promoting those causes. They will be able to fill an even greater sense of ownership in a non-profit’s Spring donation campaign, and a greater sense of accomplishment when the campaign goal has been met and an important cause has benefited.
Advancing the Blockchain Ecosystem - Non-profit organizations that are not yet familiar with cryptocurrency will gain increased awareness of this important new technology, spurring further interest and adoption for the entire ecosystem. Organizations that do not yet have a profile on our platform can also be nominated and can claim their profile for a fee that will used to buy and stake TRST.
We are excited about this new staking feature. It represents an extension of the use of TRST as a means of facilitating trust in group savings, to a means of signaling confidence and trust in an organization’s mission. And, ultimately, it leverages the strength of a community to build a powerful, sustainable way to fundraise.