Fundamental Human Constituents of a Comprehensive Digital Assets Ecosystem (DAE)

by Dane Keller Rutledge
November 5, 2018

INTRODUCTION

A comprehensive digital assets ecosystem (DAE) must inculcate a complete array of competent human constituents to succeed in a competitive blockchain marketplace.

MARKET OBSERVATION

The vast carnage in the digital assets marketplace in the first decade since the beginning of the Bitcoin revolution left the blockchain landscape littered with notorious failures: stolen stakes, inauthentic trades, incoherent governance, technical glitches, flat-out fraud, poor judgment, and incompetence.

As of this writing, Bitcoin and some major “altcoins” have pulled back dramatically, having shed the vast majority of their market pricing as against their highs of less than a year ago. Bitcoin itself is down dramatically from its December 2017 high.

Though the future of the digital assets market is by no means certain, it is noteworthy that in the tech-stock boom and eventual bust in early 2000, the cream rose to the top. In a challenging marketplace, the individuals shepherding a project forward must be exceptionally responsible, trustworthy, skilled, and visionary. In my editorial, “Creating a Comprehensive Digital Assets Ecosystem (DAE)” (October 24, 2018), I posited a combination of several technological applications. In the present article, I identify the human constituents fundamental to pursuing a successful digital assets ecosystem (DAE).

FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN CONSTITUENTS

The initial cradling of an idea as it matures requires a cooperative array of collaborative individuals, akin to founders, who contribute their insight, time, and talent — though often they work without early monetary compensation. I call these individuals “Contributors”.

Successful startups rely on early “seed capital” in order to develop an idea into a project aspiring to attract broad public support. Typically, such seed funders are not active managers. I refer to such early passive participants (and later purchasers at public sale) as “Supporters”.

There is also the category of what I denominate as “Facilitators”, including advisors, developers, promoters, and custodians.

“Advisors” offer their legal, financial, marketing, technical, political, and public relations advice in a competitive environment in which thousands of digital assets startups duke it out to attract the attention of individuals interested in supporting a risky, volatile, and complex form of business. And if significant monies are successfully raised by private pre-sales or a public sale, then it is imperative the digital assets ecosystem also retain Advisors whose savvy and experience can assist in managing those funds.

Of course, at all stages of evolution of a DAE, there must be technological expertise of the highest caliber. In coding circles, these professionals are generally called “Devs” or “Developers”. It is important to recognize in a digital assets ecosystem, however, that “development” may embrace initiatives well beyond just software engineering.

And no one will dispute that marketing is fundamental to business success. The functions of “Promoters” are many and varied.

Particularly if a digital assets venture has substantial funds in hand, it is important to have qualified and trustworthy “Custodians” of those resources.

It is perhaps common sense but nonetheless important to realize there are distinctly different demands on active personnel depending on whether the venture is or is not substantially funded by a successful sale of units of its native digital asset. When a startup digital assets venture is suddenly sitting on a ton of money, the sort of guidance needed from all categories is inevitably quite different from early needs.

Accordingly, for purposes of allocating units of the native digital asset to compensate the various fundamental human constituents of a DAE, I propose dichotomizing all categories into Phase 1 (pre-sale) and Phase 2 (post-sale) personnel, although naturally there may be particular individuals who cross the divide and participate in both phases.

INCENTIVE

Humans interact and produce by virtue of incentive. In order to be induced to commit (effective) time and attention, the species needs sustenance. Thus, all (effective) human constituents in an intelligently-structured digital assets ecosystem must be compensated in units of the native digital asset of a DAE paid via three distinct yet interrelated incentive-relevant DAE mechanisms: (1) a dynamic community platform that recruits and aligns members of the community to support distribution of the native digital asset, (2) a public treasury to fund proposals to the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) providing the substructure of the DAE, and (3) a reserve supply earmarked for progressive issuance of the native digital asset to pay for verification of transactions on a native blockchain interacting with external blockchains by a secure, scalable, low-latency cross-chain protocol. Integrate those three mechanisms into one easy-to-use effortlessly-accessible master application interface also including a decentralized exchange, a peer-to-peer wallet, and an analytics engine. Combine all that elegant technology with a full complement of fundamental human constituents cooperating in a decentralized community dedicated to a sustainable future assisted by compatible artificial intelligence and machine learning. That’s the synergistic formula for a comprehensive digital assets ecosystem.

DKR

CAUTION/DISCLAIMER: Please do not take any of what is written in this editorial as legal advice (or, for that matter, as advice of any kind). One should always seek advice of one’s own legal counsel and/or other relevant professionals.

Copyright 2018
Dane Keller Rutledge
All rights reserved

Recent articles by Dane Keller Rutledge:
Creating a Comprehensive Digital Assets Ecosystem (DAE)(October 24, 2018)