Bitcoin Forum

This is just a thought which seems to me worthy of discussion here

If you are a regular visitor to such news outlets as Cointelegraph, Forbes, and their likes, you probably know that many companies the world over are now tokenizing their goods. Here's the recent piece (https://cointelegraph.com/news/russian-smelting-giant-begins-testing-digital-trading-platform) about the Russian mining and smelting giant Nornickel that is now testing their blockchain platform for trading the stuff they produce (namely, metals). Even European soccer clubs like Juventus (https://cointelegraph.com/news/juventus-soccer-club-releases-blockchain-token-for-fan-voting) and Paris Saint-Germain (https://cointelegraph.com/news/paris-saint-germain-soccer-club-to-launch-fan-token) are going this way by creating fan tokens that allow their holders to "participate in voting and polling"

So why not tokenize bitcointalk.org in a similar way? For example, every Legendary member (or just any member with earned merits) could receive a certain amount of tokens (think of them as an extension of merits) that would allow them to extend their authority in some way beyond the forum (since the platform should be conceived as an extension of the forum itself into the outside world to be of any use). The possibilities are virtually limitless, and many of them cannot be thought of right now (or even dreamed of, for that matter)

Please share your opinions below. Also, be sure to read the following:


So before you jump to conclusions keep in mind that tokenization in general is not limited to creating a new coin as it goes way beyond that (read, this topic is not about creating another shitcoin)

I'm sure theymos already has this on his agenda right after KYC implementation.

This sounds like a sure fire way to corrupt the merit sources and change merit from being a reward for making posts the forum needs more of to something with monitory value. 

Blockchain is great and all, but you do know that we don’t need to tokenize or blockchainize everything right? What would even be the point of doing that with merits when its clearly a centralized system? It works better in a SQL database.

We have that many shitcoins because people think we need a token for every single aspect of our life and society. Dentists, horses, toilet coins, etc... there is no point. ???

Ok , then after a while , i would suggest to create a private coin for each local board which can't be spent in other boards.  ::) A coin for Meta board will be the most expensive one and we name it "Merit-Coin" or "The one above all" .  ;D

The forum has its own token already , it's bitcoin .

There's absolutely no need to tokenize everything and put all that you can on the blockchain. A forum has too many centralized components and too many trust-based relationships. We've yet to cover a reliable client-server infastracture to proceed to decentralized hosting, why even bother tokenizing the forum. And what's to tokenize? Ownership? Profit rights? Maybe access to features?

And why tokenize it in the first place? If it can't run autonomously then what's the advantage over regular stocks? Or what's the advantage over maybe running virtual stocks with crypto on a centralized exchange? Maybe that tokens won't be seized? But it's still trust based that owners of the forums are going to allow for token-holders to preserve their rights, so what's the point?

So many questions. I'd just say stick to the fundamentals and steer away from the idea that anything can be tokenized. By doing so you lose trustlessness and therefore not utilizing the main purpose of the blockchain.

The primary motivation behind a tokenization is the transfer of wealth from the clueless to the clueful. Bitcointalk.org/theymos has more than enough bitcoins saved up to sustain the forum for a very long period of time, even if the forum got rid of the few unintrusive ads it displays and the price tanked by 90% it would still last for quite a while.

You don't get it guys, seriously

But mentioning merits (in the context of tokens) was probably a mistake on my part as it seems to be utterly misleading. The forum blockchain in the form of a bitcointalk.org client (like Bitcoin's client) is to be run by the forum members, and its purpose is to extend the forum into the world (as I wrote in the OP). You could do fancy things on it

As such, it won't affect the forum itself from the inside (read, everything here will remain as it is, merits included). Think of it as bitcointalk.org taking over the world beyond what it has already done (and taken), as a further expansion. The idea, if done right, is certainly worth it. You will remember me when someone implements it elsewhere

We can do those blockchain-y fancy things with Bitcoin (or any of the 1000s of shitcoins if we're so inclined).

And even if you could find someone in the "outside world" who would care that you made 20k posts on some forum, I doubt that a token would make any difference.

Then they can sell the tokens?
Well, this will trigger another drama [problem]. People will assume that gaining Merit is for money.  ::)

What sort of fancy things?


No one's stopping you from creating such a token yourself. I just doubt theymos will want to get involved himself in this initiative.

That would be against the initial purpose of the forum. Why tokenize it when Satoshi himself created it mainly to discuss bitcoin. I am very sure the new "token" would destruct people from the real purpose of the forum

Let's dig back at the root purpose of the forum.

Are there any financial incentives to join the forum as initially planned and always managed by some generations of admins?
No. The forum is the place for discussions, for talking about bitcoin, ideas, and so forth.

There are some ways to get jobs and get money here but the forum was not born because of financial reasons, and it has never played as an exchange (even people still use the forum as a channel to exchange, buy and sell something).

If we look at the forum this way and consider it solely as a place for idea discussions, there is no good reasons to tokenize the forum.
This one is the closest with your idea.
Bitcointalk.org collectible coin ideas & vote  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5191127.0)

The world needs Bitcoin, not blockchain.

Metatokens are not for sale (one metatoken per forum member)

They will be digital passports of the forum members in the world beyond the forum. So when someone wants to deal with a forum user in the forum-related matters, he can see if a certain person is really the one who he claims to be. This won't violate privacy since you can always choose not to respond if someone sends you a message first, otherwise all info is already available in the forum account details. But if you want to reach out to someone as a forum member, it handles the issue of proving you are the one. Simply put, the forum blockchain will open the forum to the world in the way that can be useful both to the forum and to the world outside the forum

^
The concept is pretty much confusing and doesn't seem to serve any good purpose and as others said, the total token drama will be too much centralized with only certain people having the tokens!

Pretty much this.

Many of us or probably 90% of us (the forum members) doesn't even know what a forum is actually I think. I am not complaining people who came here to ask doubts or discuss about things related to Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, but who signed up here for the sole purpose of earning money/extracting the best out of this forum even after knowing the sole purpose of a forum and subsequently contributing lesser than what they get paid.

I am not sure if I have shared this already but, I have been a Torrenter for quite a long time (maybe the time we people started using emule or similar stuff) and I have uploaded TBs of data worth of movies and TV-Shows for the welfare of other downloaders. I do this out as an hobby and even today I do this when time permits. None paid me for what I did, and you shouldn't demand for that as well! But that doesn't seem to be here, many of us are for earning through bounties and signatures which isn't the purpose of our forum.

P.S : There is an ERC-20 token in the name of bitcointalk  :D : https://etherscan.io/token/0xfc3dd0b1808ed23ab7f1657264dd6c9d0cb38782

You should better come up with another name or a separate blockchain for bitcointalk if you really need to.  ;D

Do you mean something like https://www.bitrated.com/ ^*? Or, in a broader sense, how can we solve the problem of trust in a decentralized manner? Is that what you mean?
Extending the blockchain concept to many areas that require a third person may not be very successful.
In fact, the most prominent success of this technology in financial transactions. If you can find a way to use it optimally in financial terms, this will be a real achievement.

* for more read ---> https://www.bitrated.com/faq

Something to that tune at the root of it


However, it is not about reputation as such

If you have a record on the forum distributed ledger (represented by your digital token), you can prove you are a certain member of the forum (reputation and merits included). This is a bare minimum but in and of itself it is pretty much useless unless it serves as a foundation for other things which can be built on this blockchain, for example, smart contracts for jobs, escrow, etc. It is not possible to say right now what you can build on it but if you read in the linked piece above what Nornickel is trying to do, it makes sense


Voting and polling are two other areas where the idea of a distributed ledger fits perfectly

I remember reading a similar topic and getting some response like these (if I remember it correctly):
- "We already have a coin, and it's BTC;"
- "This forum name is Bitcoin-talk."
- etc.

*I tried to search it but couldn't find it though.

Therefore, I think adding tokens will not be beneficial for us. If the problem is about governance, then we must solve it by the governance point of view, not with tokenizing everything.

What about running the entirety of the forum on its own dedicated blockchain?

For example, as a backup option? Say, we have the full nodes which keep the copy of the forum database (some part thereof) and the lite nodes which are used only for posting? The concept seems viable, even though it would mean giving up certain rights over the forum to the forum community. It is not about tokenizing the forum for its own sake but rather for making things more decentralized while the forum itself more open to the world

This reminds me of make merit a crypto? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3362622.0). To repeat what I said there: in general, anything that can be done without a blockchain or token, should be done without it.

Although, considering I earned 0.80% of all earned Merits on the forum, it sounds great to make me 0.80% shareholder of the ~1250+ BTC the forum owns! That's just over $75,000. That puts the value of 1 Merit just under $20, which is very close to the "black market" prices I've seen quoted.

Jokes aside, I voted "No, it is complete bullshit".

If you want to tokenize the forum have a look  here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3920469.0)
The idea is not completely bad but there are just 2 things wrong.
1. It will not de descentralized as there would be a major authority... Theymos (pretty much like btc and satoshi). And whatever he sais goes!
2. This is not a multinational company type of place. Tho it would have had the possibility to become one for a while...

P. S.
Each of us could use some bitcoin, but the world need blockchain dude :)

That means we have four more months for that  :D.

Was not aware that theymos endorsed a project  :o.

You do not need to be a multinational company to come up with a shit coin  :P. Check out the market and you will find thousands of shitcoins started from basement :D.

What comes up in my mind is a system like steemit, and it has governance problems too, just like EOS, etc. << case about DPOS

I'm still skeptical about the usage of blockchain outside the realm of PoW/Bitcoin though, even more, to store cheap data like forum posts. Besides, it will cost significantly more to set up a node that can handle x forum post/second. And even with all that hassle, there is no guarantee that we can achieve the desired level of decentralization.

However, don't be discouraged if you want to build such system. Go ahead and prove me wrong, maybe I'm just too old :)

Making a popular decentralized forum is a worthy goal. (Making unpopular decentralized forums has already been done...) But you should start with that goal in mind. If you start with the goal of creating some attractive new token, then you're just going to create garbage. I'm not sure that a decentralized forum would have any use for any cryptocurrency/token at all (ie. not even BTC integration), and certainly it wouldn't need a new token/coin.

A good heuristic for identifying actually-useful projects is: if it has its own token/coin, then 99% of the time it's a cash-grab which is at best a mashing-together of old tech in mildly interesting but ultimately unsustainable ways.


"Governance" is a red herring. If it's one-person-one-vote, then you have classic problems like rational ignorance and unjust oppression of minorities. Fiat currencies like USD are the result of democracies. If the governance is more like stock ownership, then you tend to get a pretty centralized setup where a small handful of people set the rules from the beginning of the system to the end. You can create that kind of centralized/semi-centralized system a lot more efficiently without a big blockchain system.

One of the main advantages of Bitcoin is that it is simply not governed. No majority or central authority can force any participant to do anything: each person decides for himself. In decentralized systems, this non-governance should be the ideal. Structure the system so that nobody (not even a majority) can force anyone to do anything, but so that it is still useful. This is a big challenge, far moreso than having a central authority be assigned or elected. If you have to resort to any sort of governance within the system itself, then you've failed to create a robust decentralized system.

Well said, and those words could have come out of my own keyboard. 

If you wonder why the ICO market is so idiotic, it's because of the above.  Those project developers try to shoehorn a blockchain solution onto problems where it makes no sense, and who usually gets all of the tokens generated?  The developers.  And when it's obvious that the project sucks, those morons move onto the next stupid idea.  There doesn't need to be a coin for tipping, a coin for porn, a coin for [insert you-name-it here].  And there certainly doesn't need to be a bitcointalkcoin.

Extend their authority?  This is a meritocracy (pretty much), and just because a member has achieved Legendary rank, that doesn't mean that member has any authority whatsoever.

It is ironic how people see only what they want to see

I wrote about using the forum blockchain as a backup option and received a feedback that it is not an optimal solution. I wrote about tokens being used as digital passports to prove one's identity (okay, forum membership beyond the forum) and was instantly accused of trying to promote the creation of yet another shitcoin. Then I write about earned merits and get a reply that it doesn't mean a shit since it is a meritocracy. What the fuck, really?

Isn't a backup option supposed to be used in case no optimal solution is currently available (read, the forum has been taken down or over)? What do authentication tokens have to do with shitcoins (or just any coins, for that matter)? Aren't earned merits a representation of a meritocracy incarnate (as even the word itself suggests), while their amount an assessment of one's usefulness and value to the forum?

As is there are plenty of spams and plagiarism already in the forum. Tokenizing the forum would simply increase it multi fold. There is only one authority for Bitcointalk.org and that is Theymos. Hence, there is no point of extending the authority. There are quite a few other more important things to implement than something like tokenizing the forum. I vote for 'No'.

Here we go again

By how much can theymos extend his authority, or rather the authority (or dominion, or supremacy) of the forum, into the external world on his own? I don't think that by much since otherwise he would have done so long ago. Satoshi did that with the help of Bitcoin. The forum supported Bitcoin, though you can think the other way too

But by now it has lost its imperative in the cryptoworld. A forum blockchain could help retrieve that momentum by reintegrating the forum into the changed environment at a new level. I understand that change can be difficult and even painful but sometimes it is required. Really, if Bitcoin is not about change, then what is?

As I understand from theymos reply above, he is also not interesting in developing the token for the forum. A token for the forum will be infact centralized one which no one needs. Also the forum token may be valuable in the start, but it the long run it will join the dust, so i also prefer a No for this idea.

We need to understand the basics first.

I mean how we even dream that earned merits currently represent a meritocracy.

You would need every persons EVERY contribution (posts) to be measured against a set of transparent criteria (that actually was thrashed to optimally assess value) with absolutely NO bias at all.

LOL yeah good luck with that.

The entire notion of merit is dangerous and MASSIVELY net negative. This is undeniable and no person has even attempted to mount a credible rebuttal to the core points that make it pretty much meaningless and presents a huge threat to free speech AND to create a 2 tier system where financially motivated wrong doing from merit cyclers/DT are rewarded and lesser evils from those with no control of merits/DT are punished. It develops a corrupt and broken environment where the only eventuality is total and utter anarchy.

Remove subjectivity and bias to the max, then ensure every contribution is given equal consideration (very hard) then take away the massive variation  ( linked to bias anyway)
and you could tighten it up perhaps to a level where it has far MORE meaning, Far less damage in terms of crushing free speech and ASSISTING scamming  making for a far more peaceful and optimal environment. Still not perfect and not immune to a measure of abuse.

The trick is obviously to remove room for bias (subjectivity), create less incentive and reward for being bias.  Introducing a token serves ZERO net gain and introduces extra incentive to abuse and game, when you want to reduce this. If you can not make a system that is IMPOSSIBLE to abuse then you want to ensure that you are not placing huge motivation for them to abuse it. People that abuse things obviously measure the COST to abuse vs Reward for abusing. Currently we are at a huge huge huge ratio in favor of abusing. Need to reduce that ratio.

Sadly the current system give HUGE incentives to abuse and leaves it wide open to abuse, then when you are in it makes it very easy to entrench yourself in an abusive position.

We have given NUMEROUS suggestions that could help to fix this up, but they are ignored simply because there is clear bias against us personally and MORE because the people assessing them here GAIN from the subjectivity being LEFT IN SO THEY CAN GAME AND ABUSE IT. Not because any of those suggestions have been debunked at all.

You are free to debunk any points that are made above if you like. We would welcome it.

Make everybody solve a crypto problem to make a post. Then we could raise the difficulty for bounty hunters. :)

That could be one way, but is that what a community surrounding and promoting bitcoin needs. You can have 10 GM or VB types that can produce more useful work that trying to educate the entire board into the deeper tech aspects of crypto could really achieve. The greater minds in that area will likely not be relying on the community to education them. You really only need a nice friendly environment where people are encouraged to get along and promote the principles of decentralized trustless designs. You will never get this if people see a 2 tier system. There are many simply ways to roll back the opportunities to game, and incentives to game.

Then if you can get it pretty much air tight and you want to tokenize it okay....but if those can be given financial value directly or indirectly again you are just motivating to exploit the system to increase their tokens.

You need to reach a level where the effort to abuse vs reward ratio  means most won't bother. They will just be happy to post and contribute on a level playing field for whatever rewards are fairly attained by doing so. Then you get the best out of everyone.

Alts are dying dilution death now. It is clear bitcoin is now being seen as a completely separate entity that will not dilute because it is bitcoin and separate from "alts" and people are catching on to that. I think bounties and bounty hunting will soon reach the level of effort not worth reward. Eventually there may be a few big supported alt projects but NOVEL groundbreaking bitcoin crushing design claims are running out.

I mean if the community had one shared goal you would likely find the entire community would operate like the single projects threads do where there is unity and ideas being shared with the sole goal of supporting that project ( of course a few exceptions). It is when person interest for selfish behaviors comes into play you will find the trouble starts.

I'm sorry, but I also think that the tokenization of the forum will not give large privileges.
The main objective of this site is a community that discusses and promotes cryptocurrency in the world.
And speculating with a token on exchanges or other resources will only give a negative attitude to the community, as someone can lose their money by buying a token expensive, and they can’t sell it at a high price, since there is a chance of a devaluation.

I can see how this can actually devalue signature campaigns by encouraging even more low-quality posts without campaign managers.

Uh-oh, did I hit a nerve?

It seems to be somewhat off-topic here but I will reply nevertheless. There can be no set of transparent criteria (read, objective measure of the value of a post) because the whole idea of merits is entirely subjective. You merit a post on whether you personally like it, if it helps or enjoys you individually in some way, but since there are no two identical people (even twins are different), you can't objectively have it any other way, with no bias, let alone at all. The same applies to meritocracy in general, though on a larger scale (more specifically, on a society level)


I want to emphasize (again) that tokenization is not limited to creating a new coin, and this topic is definitely not about starting off yet another shitcoin

Well, that is kind of the point. Please re-read our post and try to understand it. Merits can NOT be allowed to be ENTIRELY SUBJECTIVE (wide open to abuse) and then at the same time FINANCIALLY REWARD that abuse. Or guess what will happen EVERY TIME.  Yes they will be abused widely and to the max people can get away with. Rendering the entire idea VOID and dangerous.

Your statement is also pretty strange to us anyway. Try having a society with no objectively verifiable transparent rules.. Try driving your car on a road with no transparent rules, try playing a sport with no transparent rules.

Yes, there will be perception bias, that is the purpose of the transparent rules to leave as little room or NO room for that to remain. Else that excuse will be given for simply ensuring MAX possible selfish gain.

I am not clear how also "merit" which is the crux of your "meritocracy " for distributing "tokens" is way off topic. I mean merit is like a token a select 0.01% give it to the others in that 0.011% pals to ensure you they give some back to you , then you use them to place votes for each other on DT. Then you reward each other with chipmixer and the powers to prevent others fair opportunities to compete for your highly paid sig spots and other rev streams.  Anyone mentions it is clearly unfair and broken you use your self given powers to punish them by starving them of merit and giving them red marks to prevent them having sigs or trading.

Why place another token on top of a broken token that already does too much damage and does zero good except to hold back a few bots and account farmers?

If you want another token on top of merit token, then fix the first one or you will just have 2 broken tokens and more incentive to abuse. N

Try to avoid ad hominem attacks. Just focus on the core points and debunk those first.

With merit you can not eliminate the bias, you can only seek to reduce the room for bias to exist. I think also the variance is clearly a huge mistake the 1-50 range is a huge distortion and again far too much room for bias. You want  really 1 merit or 0 merit. At worst 1 or 3. It would be best to add in some other measures like no more than 1% of your allocated merits can go to the same member. We have millions of members it is not to much to ask to spread 1% to at least 100 different members. Better still 0.5% after the first merit is given.

There are LOTs of things you can bring in to reduce the BIAS (room to abuse) and motivation to abuse. At the moment we are like at MAX possible abuse and bias levels. There is no point saying because you will never hit 0 that you leave it at 100% open. If you can get it down to 10% you will notice HUGE HUGE HUGE changes in many aspects here.

There was a member who once tried to define some solid transparent rules or thresholds that should be met by a post for it to claim to be VALUABLE. That debate should have been continued and used as a basis for clear guidelines for giving merit and bring in all the other clearly beneficial changes he has taken time to present.

Or just leave it as the abused and dangerous mess it is now.  Fix that then talk about tokenizing it and what your token will bring to the party. Or perhaps base the token on something now undeniably meaningless and broken to start with. Like objectively verifiable metrics that can not be gamed.

But I agree with you

If you want to say that it can't be this way (read, merits being granted on purely subjective basis) and I say that it can't be any other way (read, merits granted on a set of objective criteria), then the system of merits will be abused, which seems to be the case. Moreover, I've never been fond of merits myself but it could have been worse than that, much worse. Just imagine how flawed and abused this system would become if it were possible to give negative feedback on individual posts


I'm not sure whom you refer to by "us" here

Regardless, I'm not saying anything new as there are no rules other than those society on the whole imposes on its members, road rules included (if that was your point). Some of these rules are more transparent than others, some less (and you'd be surprised how "transparent" are rules in certain sports, e.g. figure skating or rhythmic gymnastics), but there is not any other authority than the society itself. Simply put, you have to live with that


Care to explain what you mean?

Firstly we are not clear on what you are now saying. However.


1. In all of those other cases where there are objectively verifiable transparent rules they are applied to every equally.

2. It could NOT be worse than it is now. The opportunity or ROOM to abuse is almost TOTAL. There is no rule at all. There is no attempt to remove ANY subjectivity. Subjectivity it at MAX settings .. how could it ever be worse?? You could not DEVISE A WORSE SYSTEM>

3. You certainly can leave red trust /negative feedback on individual posts even those that are simply independently verifiable observable instances.

there is no defense possible of the merit system it is cancer for all honest members eventually, although some will certainly gain more than others before the entire board turns into a war zone.