@Free thanks for comments and questions.
You’ve an interesting idea with Validbook, but it does sound much like another cryptocurrency hype very similar to so many others.
Let me prove that it is not, just a “cryptocurrency hype”. I will be very grateful if you can challenge Validbook idea (feel free to be as direct/blunt in your comments as you can, I’ve got a thick skin). In general, as I wrote in my origianl public email about Validbook - Validbook is not an ICO scam.
I especially like the idea of giving free money to every person on the planet every day.
Kudos are not “free” money. They are just money. Money of humans. Immediately after Kudos are issued, they are distributed to self-sovereign digital identities that proved to uniquely represent humans.
I understand, why Kudos sound like “free” money - your identity receives them in a sense for nothing, just for uniquely representing you as human, but to think about Kudos as about “free” money, is not correct on 2 levels:
- On a philosophical/logical level. Kudos are not “free” money. They are just money, – our money, the money of humans. Kudos are produced by humans - 1 living human individual produces 1 KDS per day.
To better illustrate this point. Think about US dollars. Are they “free” money? One can think that for Federal Reserve they are “free” money. In theory Federal Reserve can print as much USD as they want. In practice it is not true, the supply of dollars is limited as Federal Reserve have to account for inflation. The same is with Kudos, humans cannot produce as much Kudos as they want. Kudos supply is limited - 1 KDS per 1 human per 1 day. - On practical level. All daily production of Kudos is distributed among only those identities, that proved to uniquely represent humans. Your identity needs to do some work to start receiving Kudos - provide proofs, that it uniquely represents you as living human individual. So even from practical point of view KDS are not completely “free” money as you need to do work to start receiving them.
Distribution of KDS only among identities that proved to uniquely represent humans is done in order to solve chicken-egg problem of starting Validbook, continuously support Kudos value, and to incentivise and reward people who wants to support Validbook.
…I see before that can happen, investors are supposed to give you a lot of money.
Thanks for showing suspicion publicly (I know this requires courage, not being afraid of conflict). 2 points here.
- Investors do not give money to me, they give it to Validbook Foundation that is going to spend it mainly on salaries of developers. Developers who are going to build and maintain production version of Validbook obviously need to live and prosper (feel good about their lives, the quality of their lives). I have transparently described in “Proposal to Cooperate” the team structure, that needs to be assembled to develop minimal production version of Validbook and its cost.
Of course, you have every right to be suspicious of the person/people who are in charge of Validbook Foundation as they can be corrupt, incompetent, abuse funds, or simply run away with money, etc. The answer to that is - A) we have legal system that protects at least from blatant cases of abuse, B) as I wrote earlier, Validbook is not ICO scam >> AKA trust me >> investors needs to balance risk vs reward and decide. - It is not “a lot of money” for such project. The 200K-1M range is a very reasonable amount (see cost structure in “Proposal to Cooperate”), taking into account the level of expertise and talent of people that needs to be attracted into the team and market opportunities that these people have.
The part that doesn’t add up for me is, how can you give money to every person on the Earth, every single day?
From logical and mathematical perspective see above. Additionally to that, I do not think that every human on earth will be interested to participate in initial/daily Kudos distribution (support of Validbook). It is hard to say how many people will participate in KDS distribution, as it will depend on many factors. This is a separate discussion.
From technical perspective, KDS distribution can be done using scaled blockchains - either blockchains with Level 2 add-on (like Lightning Network, Raiden etc.) or high performance blockchains based on proof of stake, sharding (OmniLedger, Ethereum Casper). Technically, it is quite challenging, but as Lightning Network, Raiden shown, it is possible, at least through L2 hub-spoke model.
@Free thanks again, for challenging Validbook idea. I encourage you and all to challenge it more. Probably the best place will be at this topic - Validbook - a universal platform for cooperation I am looking forward where that discussion might lead us, even if it leads to the debunking of Validbook idea.
Currently, I see the following arguments as the main threats to Validbook existence:
- Arbitration. Will there be enough arbiters?
- Arbitration. Will arbitration be reliable enough? Will SURLHI (Statements of Unique Representation of Living Human Individual) claims be acknowledged as valid/honest correctly? In other words, how many successful Sybil identities (identities with fake SURLHI) will be out there?
- How Validbook Foundation is going to be funded long term? Is Business Model based on Self-Sovereign Identity sustainable?
- Is it not re-centralization? Will Validbook Foundation have too much power? Will Validbook Foundation become corrupt eventually (see issues with UN, FIFA etc)?
- Are Validbook services going to be substantially better than services already provided by the market (Facebook, Google)? Is human nature the real cause of psychological, cognitive and community issues with Social Networking Services and not attention based business model? And if yes, will Validbook Services implementation make any difference?
- Will Validbook development be not urgent and agile enogh? As there are no life chaning incentives (not-for-profit model >> no life changing, get rich quick / “buy lambo” opportunities) for Validbook developers/maintainters, the development might be too slow paced (common issue with not-for-profit projects - Wikipedia, government projects)?
- Are Validbook services and protocols going to be net positive for humanity? There might be unforeseen negative consequences of adopting Validbook and Kudos in the far future.