Bitcoin Forum

...but I need feedback on it, assistance in developing the concept, and if it is viable, I need help in making it a reality.

I want to make a new virtual currency. Not quite a cryptocurrency, the idea is that it'll be centralised, and be for-profit. Not necessarily something which will kill the idea, I believe, but anyway.

I call the concept Meritcoin. It is a web-based virtual currency, where money is created when the Meritcoin company grants it to people, for doing something with some kind of merit and henceforth adding (even ever so slightly) to the human experience.

How it works is, you will be able to get MTC for doing well in a video game, creating content of some sort (like an educational, entertaining, artistic or literal work) or excelling in a sport. The money will be allocated through a few different ways; getting votes on the Meritcoin site for your content or achievement (we may rely on Reddit for this instead of the Meritcoin site), being given a set sum of Meritcoins by a Judge in the field you have excelled in (it won't just be arbitrary, the judge will refer to a Reward Scheme which will dictate how many Meritcoins one gets for doing something), by winning a judge-run competition, or a quarterly, biannual or annual award.

I want Meritcoin to embody and empower many aspects of human life. The Content voting and reward system, I believe, has the power to change attitudes towards copyright, and could cause a media revolution, proving once and for all that freedom of data can result in huge wins for everyone.
With the rewards in video games, we are literally incentivising you to buy and play video games. On the surface, it sounds a bit dodgy. But with subsidised gaming, we are making the video game industry potentially an exponential amount more lucrative.
We could reward academic advances. A content section for scientific advances could be made to showcase the best achievements. Think of it as micro-incentivising, parallel to macro-incentivising undertaken when someone gives a grant to a scientist, or a Nobel Prize.
We could fund philanthropic-aimed enterprises, like microfinance banks and other enterprises which help overturn situations of serious economic downturn and poverty. Oh, so you've tried to spend all your money helping the poor? Too bad we have to partially or wholly reimburse you for that since you're a great human being.

As with other cryptocurrencies, Meritcoin mining shall be available, with a utility called meritcoin@home, where someone contributes processing power to our servers and in return they get a constant stream of MTC quickly.

I might even take advantage of the system myself and start a sort of massively game where every other possible game is integrated in an advancing skill tree. Basically, you start with a single idle game, and eventually gain enough experience to unlock the next level in the tree, with a game in a strategy category, a skill category, and a chance category. As time goes on the games get increasingly complex, and one can get an increasing amount of Meritcoins over time.

And of course, a market can be set up on the site, where users can post a job request saying they are willing to do a job in return for x MTC or higher, or a job offer saying they are willing to give x MTC or lower in return for work.

Bump.

Bump.

I do not think anyone read what posted beyond your second paragraph. Either get a better idea or move to another forum.

That's a bit harsh, all I'm asking for is constructive criticism and help if the idea is viable.

Only 1 bump per day is allowed.

You got the wrong forum on this.

Please reconsider and reformulate a better idea.

Sorry, but truth hurts, particularly if I deliver it.

Constructively, in your second paragraph there are keywords: "Not quite a cryptocurrency", "centralised", "for-profit". So fail.

Nobody read beyond that. Hence the constructive feedback ends here.

I see. Well, thanks anyway. No idea where I'm meant to get feedback on this though...

Here's some more feedback, then.  I'll try to keep it ~positive, since I realize that you have the best intentions here.  Understand that it only takes a few people with bad intentions to ruin a system designed by people with only good intentions.

1.  You're not confident of the idea enough to put it in the topic.  I almost didn't click in because "I have an idea" is vague, almost certainly a bad idea since it wasn't strong enough to make it into the topic line, and probably a waste of my time to read.  "Feedback requested for idea: MeritCoin" might have worked better.  (In the end, I clicked in mostly for the entertainment value.)

2.  You haven't taken any of your own time to poke holes into it yourself.  Remember, as soon as something has value, bad actors will come along and attempt to abuse the system to steal whatever value they can, earned or otherwise, solo or in groups.  Pretend you're a despicable person with despicable friends.  Now look for holes you might exploit.  Document these behaviors and how your system will minimize the damage these bad actors cause.

3.  Having read your post ~2.5 times, I still have no idea why MTC would have value, or who would redeem them, or what the point of centralization would be, or what "for profit" even begins to mean in this context.

Once you have arguments for
(a) why there's a cold economic reason for people to assign value to MeritCoin ("kindness of their fluttering hearts" is not),
(b) how effective bad actors can be effectively mitigated,
only then can you expect people to show interest and take your idea seriously enough to bother contributing refinements.

In the end, asking others to do your most basic due diligence is kinda rude.  Which is why you were mostly ignored.

I stopped at video game. Keep your coins out of my games is all I ask.

It sounds to me like you want to make bitcoins, but also have some big central organization that dishes out coins to other worthy recipients.

I'm not entirely sure why you need a new currency to do this. why not just get a pile of bitcoin and dish them out to worthy recipients.

(a) What does Bitcoin derive its value from??
(b) Well, if a game could be easily cheated on, we wouldn't offer MTC for doing well in it, unless we implemented some sort of Valve Anti-Cheat-type thing.

I admit it may have been rude. Sorry. I'm not the most socially skilled person in the world, not that I'm using that as an excuse, just giving you a heads-up.

Honestly? I'd say a mixture of libertarian speculators who want to use it as a store of value the governments can't touch, criminals who have no place in society's created financial systems, and of course investors who love get rich quick schemes (unfortunately).

While this is fodder for a whole 'nother thread, in a nutshell, the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is in its ability to store and transfer value without bank, government, or PayPal-- er-- corporate interference.  If you think "usefulness" doesn't intrinsically have value, I suggest you ask your employer why they pay you.

Most of the value assigned to gold is because of its usefulness in storing and transferring value (though there is some basic industrial utility too, and, of course,  it's shiny.)  If 90+% of gold's value comes from its utility as money, why is it such a stretch that 100% of Bitcoin's value comes from that same place?

Well, MTC shall certainly incorporate some of these demographics into its community, but add in a twist of up-and-coming entertainers of all kinds, the hardcore gamer who wishes to hoard Meritcoins and certainly sees value in them, alternative thinkers in science who are unaccepted by mainstream establishments who can be rewarded through this system, writers and artists, basically anyone who does things of merit.
As I mentioned with the gamers, it'll be like a challenge to get as much of this money as you can because (a) it's essentially an Xbox Gamerscore applied to your everyday life, and the point in a gamerscore is to get it as high as possible (b) you are making an investment at the same time.

Ah, yes, of course. As well as the points we've listed, I can certainly try to emulate most of that with Meritcoin. Of course, I do plan to make any corporate business I make with this as ethical as possible, both for the sake of ethics and because that shall be one possible USP for us.