CWC Newsletter #42 (October 28, 2020)
By Taylor Ryker, Analyst
Improving EOS Shortcomings: EOSIO Social Media and the UX Network
Welcome back EOSIO community. The start of this next crypto bull run is frustrating current EOS and EOSIO token holders. With token prices not moving in tandem with other large market-cap tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum, I believe we should not wallow in depression but see with eyes-wide-open the continued growth of the EOS public blockchain and other EOSIO blockchains.
Community members have brought up many issues that are currently limiting the EOS public blockchain, such as concerns around user on-boarding experiences, authentic identification, the resource model, and Block Producer effectiveness.
Solutions to these issues have been recently announced that have been in the pipeline for the past couple years. Things are beginning to heat up for these projects and others. These developments are comforting to know are happening during a time of heightened fears surround the EOSIO ecosystem due to the lower token prices.
I will first take a look at IDNET and Giga from the team behind Scatter. Then, I will shift my attention to the latest interview spotlighting Voice CEO Salah Zalatimo on a popular news publisher blog. Finally, I will analyze a recent AMA (ask me anything) with one of the leaders for the UX Network.
IDNET and Giga
(source: https://nsjames.medium.com/welcome-to-idnet-giga-72dd5a39756)
From the team behind Scatter, IDNET is a reputation and identity based protocol that is an iteration of RIDL. To me it seems like IDNET is positioned to become a de facto blockchain identity that can interact between multiple EOSIO accounts at cost-effective account creation rates.
This will be important in helping to remedy the friction with on-boarding new users into the EOSIO ecosystem. If IDNET can make accounts cheaper with the same capabilities of an average-user wallet, this will greatly push dApp adoption with more users.
Here, the developer of IDNET explains how it works:
By not only focusing on EOSIO, IDNET contracts were made to work on many chains with the goal of cross-chain compatibility within the entire blockchain space.
Now IDNET will use "USAGE" tokens to power Giga, a social media platform that may seem like a competitor to Voice. However, Voice is still poised to be a news and journalistic platform for bloggers, reporters, and readers. The feeling I get from Giga is that this social media platform is more akin to Facebook or Instagram. Users and content creators will be rewarded for interacting with the platform.
An interesting development of Giga is that "USAGE is gained primarily by getting interactions on your content. When another identity interacts (up/down vote, repost, etc) on your content you get a little USAGE. If you post more than you get interactions you’ll end up with no USAGE to post anything, and will have to interact on other identity’s content instead. Make great content that people love and you’ll be able to post more. Don’t and you won’t."
With Giga, your identity and reputation become important digital commodities to interact within an online content economy. Hopefully, the competitive advantages of IDNET, USAGE tokens, and Giga inspire and encourage other EOSIO-based social media platforms to keep iterating and releasing updates.
Editor & Publisher interview with Voice CEO Salah Zalatimo
Voice recently sponsored content that featured an interview with Voice CEO Salah Zalatimo that appeared in Editor & Publisher, an American monthly trade news magazine covering the newspaper industry since 1901.
Some members of the EOSIO community and other crypto outsiders have speculated about what Voice will replace in terms of traditional social media. The interview provided more details into Voice's larger goals and objectives.
An insightful question into long-term goals: "How does human-first tie into journalism and supporting content creators?"
"The most underappreciated [sic] people online right now are content creators. Journalism has been decimated by big tech, leaving writers stuck tying their success to opaque algorithms and ad impressions. We’re building an entire platform that meets the needs and amplifies the talents of content creators of every type, regardless of affiliation. One element that has been extremely harmful to digital news is the black box of the audience, like how numbers are inflated due to algorithmic dependencies. By only allowing real humans onto Voice, we can guarantee that content is being seen (and engaged with) authentically. Authenticity will also help to drain the swamp of user comments across the web and reintroduce civil discourse."
Voice will support journalism and journalists. Ranging from big media journalists to amateur reporters, Voice seems positioned to be the platform that brings these different groups together while financially sustaining a bleeding industry.
On a side note, Block.one CTO Daniel Larimer is still a supporter of Voice.
Let's not promote any unwarranted FUD and extend a conspiracy that Daniel Larimer is leaving Voice or feels that Voice is not meeting his needs.
UX Network: Latest Released EOSIO Blockchain
Guillaume Babin-Tremblay of Origin.one and EOS Titan spoke about the history and objectives of the UX Network. After acquiring Worbli in the beginning of the year, the team behind the UX Network has been working hard to create a regulated Wall Street in the EOSIO ecosystem.
The UX Network solves:
(1) The current EOS resource model: "On UX Network, you can reserve ahead of time and retain constant access to these resources even if the load increases."
(2) RAM speculation: "Other distinctive features include a separate token for RAM, which is not governed by the Bancor maths. This was a big issue in the early days of EOS Mainnet, as speculation on RAM increased the costs of creating accounts to ridiculous levels. The subsequent fix was to basically flood the chain with cheap RAM, which is not great either, as it increases dramatically the costs of running nodes. We learned from these mistakes and built UX Network to ensure these issues would not happen."
(3) The vote-buying and vote-trading issue: "Another key feature, which addresses issues, we’ve seen on EOS Mainnet with vote trading and vote-buying is the self-staking requirement of block producers. They have to stake a significant amount of UTX tokens (which exceeds the amount of inflation rewards they can hope to get). This ensures block producer’s interests are aligned with those of token holders."
(4) Immutability: "We also added eosio.freeze, which is a feature that gives users and smart contract operators the ability to make their accounts and contracts truly immutable. By running the modified nodeos version we built, all full nodes will consider a modification to the code or keys of an account as invalid."
The UX Network provides a prime example of how the EOS public blockchain could possibly emulate and upgrade in order to resolve its issues.
In addition, the UX Network shows the flexibility and technological advancements of upgrading the EOSIO software to suit their specific needs: "EOSIO is a great platform. We made some tweaks here and there to improve on something that was already great in our opinion."
The impetus for the UX Network? Babin-Temblay explains that the UX Network team and him "believe the traditional financial system largely failed investors in providing “security” in their offerings. As a Canadian for example, I cannot express how much disdain I have for the TSX. So many companies, in the mining sector specifically, are scams just as bad as some of the worst ICOs we have seen in the crypto world in 2017. There is a track record of absolutely disgusting failure by the incumbents."
With this in mind, a long term goal of UX Network "is nothing less than to put the traditional stock markets and the regulators out of business in one fell swoop. They had their chance, and they blew it, now it's time to step aside and let the new generations build new, better systems."
I look forward to seeing future developments and growth of the UX Network.
Things are heating up. Crypto users will become more aware of the rise of social media and DeFi on EOSIO. I hope that you can handle the heat. And it is not a zero-sum competition between the EOS public blockchain/dApps vs. EOSIO blockchains/dApps because if one succeeds, the entire ecosystem continues to grow stronger.
See you all next week for another round of the CoolWave Capital Newsletter.
Go EOSIO! Go EOS!
For More Recent EOS and EOSIO Coverage: EOS Nation's Hot Sauce, Crypto Peter's Moran Post, and EOS Go's What Happened This Week on EOSIO.
Disclaimer: KJ Kingsley is not a financial advisor and holds the digital tokens or cryptocurrencies represented in the content above. This content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained in this post constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by myself to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments in this or in any other jurisdiction in which such solicitation or offer would be unlawful under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the author’s employers.