Abundance Protocol

Welcome to what's going to be another great DevNTell. So if you didn't know, DevNTell is a 30-minute window for members of the DAO to showcase something they're passionate about or have been working on. This could be an awesome project you've been working on, demonstrating unit testing best practices, automation goodies, smart contracts, how to structure a project, etc. Basically, if you've got a passion for something, this is your opportunity to share it with the community. And today, I'm happy to introduce Mike, who will be presenting 'Building Web 4' to us. Take it away, Mike.

All right, thank you so much, Narb. Um, so yeah, my name is Mike. Um, I joined the DAO, I think a few months ago at this time. Um, and the project is, uh, 'Building Web 4', um, the Abundance Protocol. And, um, I guess I'll start somewhere in the beginning. Um, so it's an idea that came out around like 2016, around, um, like the election time, actually, of 2016. Um, and it led to two problems that, um, we're trying to solve.

So, obviously around that time, like, I'm sure all of you, or most of you, if you're not from the US, um, are, know that there's like a lot of kind of media issues, media problems in the sense that, like, distrust in media, distrust in social media, like, um, you know, people were saying things and, like, the other side didn't believe, didn't understand, and didn't, there's like a complete lack of, um, trust, um, between, uh, people and in relation to media.

And I was trying to figure out like what's going on, why is there such a lack of trust, why people can't, like if you post, um, something that you, you know, show something in, um, a sort of credible news source, why people just refuse to believe it. And at some point, you know, I was trying to figure this out, trying to kind of, you know, track what's going on. And one of the issues that I realized it's, um, really a problem with, um, incentive mechanisms of social media and of media itself, um, that basically, you know, a lot of it is about, um, getting clicks, getting, um, you know, rewarded not based on actually providing real information, but on either getting one side to kind of believe what you're saying, um, and kind of vilifying the other side, just to, so you can get more clicks so you can, uh, you know, make more money from advertising, stuff like that.

So, there was clear to me that this is like a very bad model, um, but obviously like that's just how things are. Um, so I didn't really think like, you know, can we actually solve it, can we fix it. Um, but as things progress and it seemed like that the distrust just kept growing and, uh, you know, the whole country like the US, um, there's just, it's kind of drifting apart. Um, and I did realize that there has to be another way. There has to be like another way of, um, bringing trust back. Um, and I realized that one of the issues is, um, the incentive, as I said before, the incentive structure of this attention economy, economy that's not driven by actual information, but it's driven by, um, you know, getting more likes, more clicks, um, which causes people to, um, basically produce information that's not necessarily accurate, but rather that's causing, uh, hate and division, which brings more clicks.

Um, so in that sense, you know, credibility was very important, but how do you solve it? Like, there's, you know, obviously, um, fact-checkers and stuff like that, but, you know, a lot of people don't even trust the fact-checkers. Um, so I realized that one thing is you do have to have a decentralized approach, which is basically that it's not some kind of one authority that giving, that's giving you the facts, but rather, um, you know, the facts have to come from lots of people from different, um, backgrounds that you can build trust from, uh, the fact that you know that the system is not kind of, not supposed to be against you, but rather just supposed to provide you the information. Um, so that's kind of the start.

And as I was researching this more, I kind of realized that, well, it's actually one of the issues is just how the market works, um, which is, you know, when we, um, you know, the, what the market values is exchange value. Um, you know, you produce something and then you sell it to someone. But you if you produce information, there's no exchange value because information, you can sell it to one person, to a million people, uh, there's no exchange there because what you're producing is infinite. Um, and the way the market works right now is that, uh, it doesn't sell the information, it sells, um, attention. Because attention is limited, it's scarce. Um, and since that, since that's a scarce thing, you can sell it. Um, and that applies to pretty much everything.

So, um, you know, when we create even something that's a, you know, very valuable, it's not necessarily something that's going to have value in the market just because you may not be able to exchange it if it's not something scarce. So for example, even if you have a cure for some disease, if the cure is not in a form that you can sell, in the sense it's not a pill, it's not some kind of product, it will have very little value in the market. Um, maybe you can write a book about it, but then, you know, do, are you going to sell like millions and millions of books or is it just like if it's a simple idea, maybe a few people buy the book, but everyone else is like, can just hear about it from someone else and you'll get maybe like, I don't know, like 50 thousand dollars versus if you sold a pill and made billions. Um, so again, it's not about what you actually create, but what you can exchange.

And that's kind of, um, the starting point of, um, where Web 3 comes in and where, uh, I feel that Web 3 has a solution to this and can actually, um, create a different incentive structure, um, that allows, um, you know, information to be exchanged, not exchanged, but to be produced and valued, um, based on the quality, um, of the information, based on the credibility, and not just information, but anything that has an impact, that has a value, um, we can actually produce it and value it through mechanisms in Web 3. So that's kind of, um, the, uh, idea that, um, I was working, um, through and trying to resolve and trying to kind of come up with this, uh, mechanism.

And that took a while. Well, first of all, kind of a background on myself. I was, um, you know, back in 2016, I was not a developer. It was really, my background is in economics and, uh, in architecture, so I had very little knowledge of how to program, how to build anything. Um, but I had the idea this idea and I was trying to resolve it and I was thinking, well, does anyone want to build it? Um, and you know, there's a lot of people said, 'oh my god, this is an incredible idea, you know, we'll, we'll see how, how it develops'. And I'm like, 'okay, but who's gonna build it? someone needs to build it'. Um, and you know, I was going through kind of just, you know, selling this idea but there was no one out there that was actually building it or working on it. So I decided, 'all right, how about, you know, I try to figure out how to do it'. Um, so I started, um, kind of learning how to code.

And around 2019, I started coding, um, an extension, uh, for the, for the, like a browser extension, that the idea is that, um, anyone can, uh, go to any website and review, uh, if it's a news article or really any article, um, or any piece of information out there. Um, so any person can review it and then look what other, how other people reviewed it. And based on that, that article would get, uh, a certain credibility score. Um, and the idea was that you have to do it in a, again, decentralized way, a transparent way that people know that no one can really kind of manipulate the system because, you know, if it's Web 2, if it's stored on some server, then someone can just change the number. Um, or, you know, produce whatever numbers they want to support, you know, whatever is their economic or political or social goals. If it's decentralized and if it's transparent, then people know that, you know, this information, um, is credible.

Um, the other aspect is the incentive structure, which is again going back all the way to the beginning, um, that in the attention economy, the incentive structure, um, is very different from what we're trying to build in Web 3. Um, so in Web 2, again, it's about attention, it's about selling attention, which produces these negative externalities of people, um, trying to just, you know, get clicks. But in Web 3, what we can do is, uh, we can have a token and that token, the value of that token can be driven by, um, how credible information is, um, and how reliable, um, this, this system is. And it's not a direct relationship yet. This is something that, um, that we work through, like the mechanism for the system has to be worked through. And that's pretty much what we've been doing over the past, um, basically past year, uh, kind of revising the mechanism and making sure that people cannot just, uh, kind of cheat the system or trick the system.

So, I guess that was a long rambling introduction. Um, I didn't actually say what the system is yet, uh, but that's kind of like a very brief, sorry, very long history, uh, of, um, what we're trying to build. Uh, so what, what is it really? So it's a system, it's an ecosystem, uh, where the idea is that people can review, uh, not just, uh, like articles or, you know, content online, but, um, anything that is on, that is online, um, you know, any kind of digital content. It could be, uh, open-source code, it could be, uh, you know, research articles, um, you know, scientific research, um, investigative journalism, really anything.

And the value that the review would assign to that piece of content is based first of all on the credibility of the content and on the impact, um, that people believe, uh, the, you know, this piece of content, whether it's news article or research or open-source, um, how much people believe that would have, uh, an impact on the broader, um, on society, on, uh, the ecosystem, and how much it would reward people, um, in the long run. And there's a whole, you know, the whole mechanism behind it to make sure that, um, people cannot...

Yeah, uh, maybe can you do like a quick TLDR of the last couple minutes? My apologies, uh, hotel wifi sucks.

Sure, all right. Uh, so basically, um, we created a mechanism, um, that is supposed to, uh, allow people to earn money by creating high-quality, uh, content, which could be open-source, could be, um, you know, research, uh, actually journalistic articles and so on. And other people can make money by, um, creating honest reviews of that content. And everyone is kind of incentivized, um, toward those goals and people would not, um, really be able to cheat the system, uh, thanks to this, to the mechanism that we created.

Awesome, awesome. Is there a, uh, a website or something people can, can go to see, uh, this mechanism?

Sure. Uh, so basically I can share the screen. Uh, the, the coding is really in an early stage. Uh, you know, we, the, the real difficult part was, um, creating the, uh, you know, the incentive structure, uh, to make it all work. Uh, but, uh, the website is buildingweb4.io. I don't know if you guys can see it if it's live.

Yeah, yeah, I can see it. Yep.

Uh, so here it is. Uh, again the coding is in the very early stage, uh, which means that it's, first of all it is on the Mumbai testnet, which is Mumbai Polygon testnet. Uh, but it's very early which means that most of the functionality is still not coded in the UI. Um, a lot of it is in the smart contract which we are still like being developed. Um, but uh, here it is. Uh, so people be able to kind of create, uh, a project, a post, uh, or initial review of, um, some like their own post or, um, or their or someone else's. And they'll be able to collaborate with others. I'm not sure if I'm still sharing the screen.

Uh, you are. Yep, it's working.

Okay, good. Um, so they'll be able to collaborate with others, um, review other, um, other people's content, um, they be able to fund, um, if they're creating a project, um, you can basically, uh, crowdfund it, but crowdfund in the sense that uh there is an economic incentive. Uh, which means that even though the project itself is a public good and everyone can, uh, get all, um, you know, the information for free, uh, because, um, the project will have a value in the system, um, people can fund it and get, uh, some kind of percent return on their funding. Uh, so that basically accrues value to the token, which accrues value to the whole ecosystem, which means, you know, all the projects, um, will have value.

And then there's funding proposal which means basically that, um, if you believe that, um, there is something out there, uh, that needs to be researched, needs to be created, um, some kind of open-source app or whatever it is, you can, uh, put a proposal out there and again the proposal will be reviewed and will have a value in the system and then if someone builds it they'll be able to claim that value. Uh, so it's obviously very system very similar to like bounties and DAOs and stuff like that, but it's a lot more decentralized. Uh, because you know it's there's no specific voting for any proposal but rather the whole ecosystem, um, works by kind of localized, um, voting on, on, uh, projects.

Um, and then explore basically, uh, people be able to see, uh, the latest projects or based on, um, kind of their own interests or based on some kind of curated version. And then obviously they'll be able to search this is obviously not the full thing, uh, there's going to be a lot more, uh, options but they be able to search through funding requests and then obviously, um, fund those or the bit search through new projects or just have a general search. It could be basically a replacement to Google which, um, you know, provides you results based on what benefits their economics instead of what actually is something that has credibility and value. Uh, so again very early stage of, um, the coding, um, but everything up to this, um, was kind of resolved in the mechanism.

Cool. Could you speak to any, uh, challenges that, that you faced or your team faced when you were building, uh, building this? Or, or even like experiencing now I suppose.

Yeah, uh, I mean one big challenge, so again, um, is going back to the fact that I never kind of thought of myself as a developer, um, so everything that I, um, worked on like even this website I didn't even know like React or like Next.js what it's built on even a few months ago. Um, so all this is pretty much, um, you know, learning as you build. Um, you know the Solidity, the, uh, all, all the programming. And also one big challenge is getting the, you know, just getting the word out there.

Um, I think that might have been the most challenging part because especially when, when you have like a bull market, which is not the case now but when you have a bull market everyone is jumping on the latest craze, the latest NFT, the latest whatever and people don't care as much about kind of more, you know, growth-oriented, uh, projects because it's like, 'oh this is, you know, somewhere in the future, like you know, who knows what's going to happen to it'. Um, so just getting the information out there is, is a big challenge.

Oh yes, I can imagine. Uh, and is your project open-source? Can anybody, uh, help out to build it out for you with you?

Yes, absolutely. So, I mean it's a big part of it, uh, that it has to be open-source because, uh, people have to be able to trust that this system is transparent and that, um, it works. And a big part is really incentivizing, um, you know, we have it, it says right here, rewarding collaboration and creativity. And the idea is that, um, the more people contribute, uh, to open-source they should be able to be rewarded for it. Um, unlike, you know, how it's it is today, I mean Web 3 is a bit better, um, but still no but yeah everyone can contribute, uh, you can go to connect to the GitHub and, um, you know, you can see the repository and you can obviously, uh, contribute there. Um, and obviously we have a Discord, you can join our community and we're more than happy to, uh, have people help and build this out.

Awesome, awesome. Is there any one particular area you're looking for help at the moment or just anything, anything and everything? Heh.

Everything, everything. Uh, the Solidity, uh, the, uh, just, you know, building, um, the smart contract, basically it's, it's pretty, uh, the, the logic, the mechanism is pretty complex. Um, but we did resolve, uh, most of the issues it's just an issue of coding it, of, um, you know, and building it all out and building on top of it because there's going to be a lot of tooling that, um, you know, allows, uh, people to kind of extend, uh, the possibilities of what we have now. Like creating something that allows DAOs to connect directly to it so people who, you know, contribute to a DAO they can be rewarded through their contribution, uh, kind of directly, um, instead of like other mechanisms or going through, uh, kind of complex voting systems. Um, so yeah, if anyone wants, you know, please join our Discord or, you know, we can talk obviously on Developer DAO, so anywhere you want, I'm, you know, I'm open.

Excellent, excellent. Yeah, looking forward to the, the continued progress on, on this project here. Uh, we only have a few minutes left here gang. Does anyone in the crowd have any questions for Mike? Going once. Going twice. Sold. All right then. Um, thank you so much again, Mike, for coming on and sharing the Abundance Protocol with us. Um, it's, like I said, we'll all be, uh, waiting in the wings, seeing, watching its progress as as you continue to build it out with the team. Uh, so, um, with that, I want to wish everybody a very happy Friday or weekend, uh, wherever you may be in the world. Um, and that I will be dropping a link to the POAP claims for the people in, uh, in attendance. And Mike, I'll forward you your POAP, uh, through DM. And with that...

Sounds good, thank you so much Narb. Thank you so much everyone for attending.

Yeah, my pleasure, my pleasure. Mike. All right gang, with that I will stop the recording.