Ponder
~Play Matchmaker for Financial Rewards~
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________
What is Ponder?
Ponder is a platform for matchmaking. It decentralizes matchmaking allowing anyone to play matchmaker for friends and other community members, and to profit from doing so.
Large-scale matchmaking has traditionally been done centrally, either through online services such as Match.com or Linkedin, or offline through matchmaking agencies and recruitment firms. Informal matchmaking done among friends and contacts often leads to the best results but is very limited in scale. Ponder takes this informal matchmaking, and scales it for the mass-market using game mechanics and financial rewards. We motivate everyone to play matchmaker.
The Ponder beta is already available in both iOS and Android and has 70k users. The initial focus is on romantic matchmaking. Users drag and drop photos of singles they think would be a good match. If the couple like each other, the matchmaker earns $10. If the couple marry, the matchmaker wins $1000. Singles each pay $10 for every successful match, thereby earning the app $10 for each union.
For singles, Ponder is the best way to find quality dates recommended by friends and a community of motivated matchmakers. For everyone, single or taken, Ponder is a fun game-like experience where they can test their intuition and make some money.
Incentivizing Engagement
The Ponder Gold token provides users with a number of benefits
1. A Ponder Gold holder who is dating will be exclusively shown to the matchmakers that have the best match rates. In other words, singles will increase their chances of being matched.
2. A Ponder Gold holder who is matchmaking will be shown the most active singles, increasing their own match rate, and thereby potentially gaining more financial reward.
3. Only Ponder Gold holders can participate in Matchmaking Groups. These are private sub-communities aligned around values and interests, providing a more focused matchmaking experience.
4. Ponder Gold holders can offer other services to token holders such as singles events or relationship advice, with the ability to charge for their services.
5. As we expand into other verticals such as recruiting, Ponder Gold holders will continue to accrue special benefits.
____________________________________________________________
Token Sale - When?
Token Sale Start: 6am PST February 14th, 2018
Token Sale End: 10pm PST April 20th, 2018
Link: http://tokensale.ponderapp.co
Bounty: https://tokensale.ponderapp.co/#ponder_bountyToken Type: ERC-20
Token Sale Volume: 18,000,000 USD
Token Distribution: 25% Token Sale ; 5% Token Distribution ; 40% Purchase within app ; 30% retained by Ponder
Token Price: $0.2
Accepted Forms of Payment: BTC, ETH, LTC, Dash, Zcash, NEO, or USD
____________________________________________________________
Why Blockchain?
A decentralized network such as the blockchain allows for a matchmaking app such as Ponder to increase its trust exponentially. Smart contracts and a blockchain-based platform will allow our users to receive and offer matchmaking services, regardless of trust.
There is already a value economy within the app through the fiat-based Ponder Dollars system. A token can help replace this, where matchmakers earn tokens granted by those they successfully match. Having a token on the Ethereum blockchain is quicker and cheaper than a custom in-app payment mechanism.
Using blockchain technology we can create a structure for accurately collecting and safely storing sensitive personal data - avoiding an Ashley Madison-type hacking scenario. This builds up trust in the system and the community, allowing people to feel more free to be who they are, thereby generating better data to utilize in the matchmaking process.
____________________________________________________________
Road to Decentralization
Ponder will decentralize and move to the blockchain gradually. Currently the beta product is being tested entirely off the blockchain. The first step will be the addition on April 20th 2018 the ERC-20 standard-based Ponder Gold token on the Ethereum blockchain. This token will act as a parallel currency to the fiat-based Ponder Dollars currency, giving engaged users a number of ‘VIP benefits’ within the current core matchmaking function within the app.
The second step will be the introduction of Group Matchmaking, where the blockchain will be used for collecting - from multiple parties - data pertinent to the matching process. The most sensitive data will not be stored centrally with Ponder, but rather locally or in a distributed fashion. To prevent poor user experiences arising from blockchain congestion, some transactions will be completed off the blockchain.
As additional services are added to romantic matchmaking, and as we expand into the recruiting vertical in 2019, there will be ever more additional data transferred over the blockchain. And as congestion issues are removed, more of the time-sensitive transactions previously kept off the blockchain can be added back on.
____________________________________________________________
Our Vision
Ponder seeks to revolutionize how people meet. It is a platform for enabling personal introductions at scale. Using the motivating power of game mechanics and monetary reward it makes matchmakers out of everyone.
Ponder is needed because introductions change lives. Everybody can trace a shift in the direction of their lives based on an introduction - to a spouse, a job, a business partner, a friend. These high impact introductions however are limited in number and hard to find. Nobody has created a way for making quality introductions at scale.
Our vision is to be the go-to place for meeting new people in all contexts where trust is critical – dating, recruiting, business partnerships, roommates, babysitting etc. Our first target is dating/matrimony, a market with a clear problem and no good solution.
In addition to the vision outlined above, we want to finally bring blockchain technology to the masses. For too long the blockchain and cryptocurrencies have remained esoteric concepts, far removed from the problems of most people. Decentralized applications have focused on dry B2B subject matter with similarly unapproachable user interfaces, limiting the spread of blockchain understanding and innovation to very specific niche audiences. Using fun game-like interfaces and strong playful branding, we want to make Ponder the first blockchain-based application that people can readily identify, utilize, and fall in love with.
