Captain Bitcoin — Whitepaper v2.0
Watch Videos, Earn Crypto, Win Bitcoin — October 2020 Update
NOTE — CAPTAIN BITCOIN WHITEPAPER HAS BEEN UPDATED FOLLOWING A COMMUNITY GOVERNANCE VOTE WHICH WAS PASSED ON THE 2ND OCTOBER — https://snapshot.page/#/captain/proposal/QmTWTXonkFoFJ8BfHgKmxhRpeSWMwsNyjM6w9Es7Riw6tu
- Abstract
Captain Bitcoin is a disruptive cryptoeconomic incentive game designed for driving mass adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrency. It utilises Mechanism Design to draw in new and existing users to the cryptospace, where productive user action is directed to partnered crypto products. A dual token economy (CAPT and Bitcoin) is leveraged to connect these users directly into the DeFi space and the wider crypto economy. It utilises markets as consensus mechanisms to dynamically order a daily content show reel, which feeds crypto content to a rapidly growing and highly engaged user pool. It is the entrance portal for new users to the cryptospace.
2. Introduction
Captain Bitcoin is an adoption technology.
It is designed to provide sufficient incentives for users to cross the adoption gap on blockchain and cryptocurrency based applications, acting as the entrance portal to the cryptospace.
Captain Bitcoin’s mission is to drive mainstream adoption of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and blockchain-powered applications.
The adoption rate for blockchain and cryptocurrencies is slow, yet growing, with three main contributing barriers being:
● Lack of education on technology
● Lack of education on products
● Lack of education on the advantages of blockchain products
Captain Bitcoin is here to change that.
In order to drive adoption and enable a better understanding of the industry as a whole, we believe we need to make information on cryptocurrencies and blockchain-powered applications readily available with a simple and fun user experience.
Our video content and advertising platform strives to provide a low barrier to entry for people both in the industry and those just starting to explore it, while providing access to simple to understand educational content and being rewarded to do so.
Not only do we educate our users, but we pay them to discover and learn. By doing so, we are fundamentally changing advertising and learning models.
Traditionally, the main ways participants have obtained cryptocurrency in this industry is through mining, buying or participating in airdrops of projects coming into the market. However, this has solely been done by individuals who have had exposure to the industry and who know the sources to do so. Therefore this primarily assists the people already involved in cryptocurrency and is overwhelming for a newcomer.
Mining requires technical knowledge and a high-cost upfront, with many receiving comparatively negative returns. Buying cryptocurrency is the most effective route, however, without proper knowledge or understanding of the industry it can provide problems for users not participating at the right time or in the right investment by causing losses.
On the other hand, earning or airdrops have the potential for users to gain cryptocurrency based on their sweat equity, providing a low entry point when it comes to cost. It also drives users to projects, though it is possible for users to participate in improper projects essentially wasting their time and energy while the rewards prove to have no value.
We strive to use this model to drive adoption and new users to platforms and projects, ensuring our users and their time is rewarded positively.
In addition to the users earning rewards for watching each video, we also do a daily bitcoin giveaway. In order to enter the giveaway, users must watch a minimum of one minute of video content on the platform on that day.
We feel that our solution can expedite the progression of adoption and allow our users the ability to participate and learn about this new industry that has billions being invested in it.
The platform launched on 22 May 2020, is nearing its third month of live deployment, amassing over ONE HUNDRED FORTY THOUSAND users in its Beta Phase and reaching unprecedented levels of engagement on video content provided by our partners.
It utilizes innovative token economics to drive adoption to the platform and funnel users to our crypto partners, whilst being integrated directly into the emerging DeFi space.
The Captain Bitcoin token economy leverages the power and potential of both Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, providing users with a daily allowance of the CAPT ERC20 token and a probability of winning Bitcoin, determined by their CAPT balances.
3. Traction To Date
Above is a snapshot from our Google Analytics from the date of launching the platform until 5 October 2020.
4. Location Overview
Above is a snapshot of our Google Analytics from the date of launching the platform until 20 August, clearly showcasing our global audience.
5. How it works
Captain Bitcoin is a very easy to use application that consists of five basic steps:
- Create an account using Ethereum address
- Watch blockchain and crypto-related video content (limited to ~10 minutes per day).
- Each video is followed with a multiple-choice question, answer correctly to earn Captain tokens and participate in Bitcoin giveaway
- Invite other members to the platform in order to increase the number of tokens earned and increase chances of winning Bitcoin
- Claim Bitcoin winnings
Additional:
- Users can track their position on the leaderboard
- Carry out tasks to earn further Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
6. Crossing the Chasm
We are still very early in the development of the crypto space.
Since the highs of 2017, where the over-exuberance of the crypto market reached its peak, we have seen until recently almost three years of bear market.
It’s been pretty depressing, but things are about to change.
Recently a wave of new technologies have arrived that have taken crypto UX to the next level. Wallet and exchange infrastructure is now far more user-friendly and reliable, new Web 3.0 browsers allows seamless engagement with dApps and fiat on and off-ramps are vastly improved. There are new ways to engage with the assets themselves, with DeFi applications allowing the borrowing and lending of assets outside of the traditional banking systems, and this time round the tokens actually do something.
People out there in the real world however, have no idea this has happened. Some may have been lured into the cryptospace in 2017 and lost money in the bear market, or on a whitepaper promise gone wrong. Some may simply remain oblivious to the new decentralized future emerging out of the next iteration of the internet.
This gap in understanding and awareness is where Captain Bitcoin saves the day. Using a simple and engaging brand, Captain Bitcoin lures new users into the cryptospace with a fantastic deal. Sign-up, watch some videos and we’ll give you some crypto for absolutely free. The first step in crossing the chasm of adoption in any new technology.
7. Zero Cost of Entry
One of the key issues with the cryptospace is that you aren’t “in” until you own some cryptocurrency. You need skin in the game, to really get what’s going on. There is no “freemium” in the cryptospace.
That’s why we don’t just give our users the CAPT token for free every day, but provide users with the possibility of winning the most prized asset in the crypto space, Bitcoin.
The best route to adoption is seeing the value of the assets accruing over time. Once they see the principles of digital scarcity in action, they will understand what the cryptospace is all about and their journey down the rabbit hole begins.
Additionally, Captain Bitcoin’s vision is to have multiple trading pairs with CAPT token on Uniswap, allowing users to seamlessly buy other tokens for CAPT and use these platforms, creating a win-win-win situation where our customers acquire new users, our users learn about new products and Captain Bitcoin achieves its mission of driving user adoption of these technologies.
8. Mechanism Design
Getting users in isn’t quite good enough.
Giving tokens away for free is easy. Getting people to use them and giving them value is hard. For that to happen people need to perceive a real value in the token, they need to work for it.
The cryptocurrency airdrop model largely failed. Users acquired their free allocation of cryptocurrency, but didn’t care enough about the product to HODL or use them for their utility (if they had any).
Captain Bitcoin uses the game-theoretic principles of Mechanism Design to build prolonged user engagement.
Mechanism Design can be summed up as follows: “everyone has a price.” We use a multi-layered incentive system that both pays users for their engagement promotes them to HODL and when they spend, to spend with our partners. If there’s a price where people generate value on Captain Bitcoin, we can tune our system until we find it.
The goal is to create a game that people can play, which provides sufficient incentives for people to keep playing and acting productively within the system.
The Captain Bitcoin mechanism is designed so that incentives can always be ramped until there is a sufficient carrot on the end of stick to make adoption happen. The deeper into the system the users go, the more rewarded they will be.
There are six major components to the system:
- Work Based Scarcity
- A Probabilistic Draw
- Decentralised exchange pairs
- Staking
- A DAO Based Monetary Policy
- Market Based Content Ordering
8.1 Work Based Scarcity
Much like the miners in Bitcoin, users who take part in the system are required to carry out work in order to receive rewards.
For our users, this involves watching up to a maximum of 10 minutes of video every day. Or, by inviting their friends (the equivalent of 5 minutes of watching videos).
The total amount of minutes watched and referrals to the platform on that day generates a total work value for that day.
This generates a % share of work carried out by that user, which in turn determines the share of the daily block reward of CAPT tokens (elaborated in tokenomics section).
As more and more users enter the system, the total work value increases proportionally, driving down the daily stakes earned by the users. CAPT tokens get more scarce as adoption increases.
Above is the chart of distribution and daily active users on the platform from the ~first three weeks of being live in BETA.
In just 10 days CAPT tokens got about 10X more scarce than they were on Day 10. This will continue to happen with each subsequent adoption wave, and we were just 20 days in at this point.
Note — the tokenomics have changed since, but principle remains the same.
8.2 A Probabilistic Draw
In the Bitcoin network, miners across the world carry out work to find blocks, crunching trillions of numbers a second. When they find a block, they get a reward. This is called Proof of Work and it is the key to making Bitcoin the world-changing technology that it is.
The ‘work’ on the Captain Bitcoin platform is watching videos and answering questions and inviting others to join the network. Just like with Bitcoin miners, the more work you do, the more chances you have of winning!
Each friend you refer to the platform equates to the user doing 5 minutes of work during that cycle or on that day.
To do this, we have devised a unique way of increasing your probability of winning by the amount of work you do on the platform. For below example, we will assume we only have five active users on our platform and carry out below tasks during one of the cycles -
As per the above table, the total minutes ‘watched’ on the day = 85.
The work done defines the number of tokens a user earns on that day and the odds of them winning the Bitcoin. For example -
Username 4 has watched 23 (8 + (3x5)) minutes out of the 85 minutes watched on the day. So he will -
- Earn 27.06% of the tokens on that day
- Have 27.06% chances of winning Bitcoin on that day (in current model)
Withdrawing tokens from the platform removes you from our Bitcoin giveaways.
8.3 Decentralised Exchange Trading Pairs
As a platform, we are also on a mission to use the ‘pre-mine’ to create as many trading pairs with the CAPTAIN token and other ERC-20 tokens over time.
This will allow our users to buy other tokens in the ecosystem with the CAPT tokens they earn on the platform.
Our aim to create 20 trading pairs before the end of 2020, making the CAPT token core part of the DeFi infrastructure across exchanges such as Uniswap, Mooniswap and so on.
8.4 Staking
For Proof Of Stake tokens, staking is the act of holding your funds in a wallet to support the operations of the blockchain. By doing this, you are helping the network and gain rewards, allowing users to earn passive income from their crypto.
Since the CAPT token is a proxy for work in our system, our staking system provides the opportunity for users to gain access to an uplift in rewards based on their token balances.
In our model, users who stake their tokens are helping add deflationary pressure to the token, which counteracts inflationary mechanism of the daily mine.
Majority of the networks provide fixed APY on the tokens used for staking. With Captain Bitcoin the amount of token rewards are going to be variable, taking into account two factors -
- Daily emission rate (we use deflationary inflation model, more on this later)
- Number of tokens staked on any given day/cycle
Users will require a minimum of 2,100 CAPT tokens in order to stake their tokens.
Each stake of 2,100 tokens will create a ‘ticket’.
The Stakers in our system will receive 30% of the daily tokens minted as staking rewards.
Example of rewards below :
Unlike many staking mechanisms, which require locking up assets for prolonged periods of time, our staking mechanism rewards users daily and they can withdraw their staking rewards any time they like.
8.5 A DAO Based Monetary Policy / Governance Token
The above reward profiles are not fixed forever. CAPT tokens will also be usable as governance tokens, working in a 1 coin, 1 vote fashion in the Captain Bitcoin DAO. In the first instance token holders will be able to influence the staking monetary policy.
Eventually, more complex governance decisions will be possible such as using the token emission to fund community expansion of the network, changing the inflation rate and the bitcoin draw frequency and size (within sensible parameters) on a dynamic basis.
Token holders will also be able to decide to vote on proposals on how to advance the project, what trading pairs to launch on DEX’s and more.
This will be done on Snapshot.
Here is the results of our first community vote on chain leading to the severe changes in Captain Bitcoin platform — https://snapshot.page/#/captain/proposal/QmTWTXonkFoFJ8BfHgKmxhRpeSWMwsNyjM6w9Es7Riw6tu
8.6 Market Based Content Ordering
Markets are consensus mechanisms.
The price of Bitcoin for example, is a reflection of the current and discounted future of the asset as it stands at the moment.
There are, however, inefficiencies in markets, and a small number of players with large amounts of the asset can move the markets, shifting the consensus on the price disproportionally away from its true value.
In crypto markets especially, liquidity can be a huge issue. Even assets with exceptionally high market caps do not have a sufficient number of buyers and sellers to close spreads enough to enable true price discovery and exit sufficient positions.
Uniswap and other Algorithmic Market Makers (AMMs) are changing the game. They allow instant liquidity in any market by using a constant product balancing system.
Captain Bitcoin utilizes the Uniswap ecosystem to generate a user driven crypto market consensus mechanism.
Users earn CAPT daily and have an option to stay in the system, earning additional yield if they are in the Gold, Silver or Bronze team and taking part in the Bitcoin draw, or they can withdraw their tokens and trade them in the markets.
The respective CAPT volume in these markets acts as a coin vote with users trading into the tokens of their choice.
The resulting signal from uniswap then becomes our internal ordering mechanism for our video feed.
9. More to come
As the platform matures we will continue to add more functionality to the token with the support of the community through our governance structure with a mission to make CAPT the backbone of the cryptocurrency industry.
- Chainlink Integrations:
1) Chainlink Random Number Generator — for selecting daily Bitcoin winners
- DApp directory
- NFT Marketplace
- Incentivised Content Curation
10. The Captain Bitcoin Token Economy: So Far
The Captain Bitcoin Token Economy was launched on 22nd May 2020. On that day, an initial pre-mine allocation of 2.1 Billion tokens was created as the initial monetary base. Subsequently, 21 million tokens began minting daily with 10% of this allocation sent to the Captain Bitcoin team while 90% is allocated to the crowd based on their daily contribution to the platform via the work share mechanism.
In four months, over one hundred forty thousand users have signed up to the platform, making Captain Bitcoin the most adopted dApp on Ethereum to date. All this in our pre-launch phase and with a totally organic incentive only marketing strategy.
We have seen two major ‘adoption waves’, where knowledge of the Captain Bitcoin ecosystem has penetrated internet bubbles and gone viral, picking up 5,000+ users in a single day.
The Captain Bitcoin adoption curve shows new users entering the platform over our three month Beta Phase. The blue line shows our cumulative growth throughout this period and the red dotted line shows the number of daily sign ups. Each time Captain Bitcoin enters into a new internet bubble, word quickly spreads and a new adoption wave begins.
11. Token economics
Token Name — CAPTAIN
Token Ticker — CAPT
Initial supply — 2,100,000 (2.1 Million)
Daily Emission — Starting at 21,000 per day, reducing by 21% every 32 days
Team Distribution — 10% of daily emission
Community Distribution — 90% of daily emission
Max Token supply — ~5,300,000 Million tokens after 5 years
Token contract -
The initial supply of CAPT, a standard ERC-20 token, is 2.1 Million. 1.1M of these tokens are to be used for boosting the value of the network in the future. For now, they remain under lock and private key and the remaining 1M tokens are to be distributed to our early adopters and token holders proportionally based on their balances at launch.
In addition to that, CAPTAIN token is subject to deflationary inflation, where the number of new tokens created reduces by 21% every 32 days. The starting number is 21,000 / day.
Why 32 days?
We wanted to remain loyal to the Bitcoin brand, and Bitcoin halving happens every 210,000 blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain, which happens roughly every four years.
In the same way, we will reduce our rate of inflation every ~210,000 blocks on the ethereum chain, which happens roughly every 32 days.
Of the daily created tokens, below is the distribution :
60% of the tokens are distributed to video watchers
30% of the tokens are distributed to stakers
10% of the tokens go to the team to continue development of the platform
The total supply of CAPT tokens should peak out at around 5,300,000 tokens in 5 years.
This token distribution is subject to change at a later date where we will add functionality where token holders can participate in the daily Bitcoin giveaway, simply by holding tokens and without watching videos.
Below is the visual representation of the numbers over 5 years of emission -
Below is Bitcoin’s inflation chart for comparison
You can see the similarities and in the same way early Bitcoin believers got rewarded significantly higher Bitcoins, our network rewards early adopters too but ours is much more aggressive.
Because of this, Captain Bitcoin can be thought of as a cryptowork platform. At the moment, we measure the work you do as users in 2 ways, watching the daily videos and referring your friends to the platform.
Holding CAPT awards you the following:
- Act as digital raffle tickets in the daily bitcoin draws
- Ability to vote on proposals on how to advance the platform : Aragon DAO
- Access to exclusive deals in the cryptospace.
- Exclusive access to uniswap token pairs.
- Earn Staking rewards
- Advertisers use CAPT to earn higher placement in the daily video feed
NO TEAM ALLOCATION FROM PRE-MINE. NO PRESALE WAS HELD. NO ICO WAS HELD. EQUITY INVESTORS GOT NO PREFERENTIAL TOKEN ALLOCATION.NO ICO WILL EVER OCCUR.
12. Inflation
The Captain Bitcoin Token Economy creates new $CAPT tokens everyday.
Captain Bitcoin has an inflationary token economy. This is because we need to incentivise our miners in an on going basis, to keep adoption moving.
The strongest meme in crypto is finite supply. The vast majority of the projects in crypto have followed this for entirely arbitrary reasons i.e. because Satoshi did it.
Sooner or later this may cause problems for Bitcoin and many of the other networks that have followed it. After the next halving, a winning miner will only receive 3.125 BTC. If they have spent more on energy over the period of time it takes them to win a block reward, than the market value of those bitcoins, it is not worth them mining and the network is in trouble.
Unlike Bitcoin, all of our miners receive a proportion of the block reward every day. That’s a lot of people who share the reward. As more users join the system, the less rewards each miner gets. In BETA already this had dropped from over a million CAPT per day to the low thousands. In our system, the reward halves every time the user base doubles.
We need an inflationary schedule or our miners have no incentive to watch the video reel and participate in the system.
Captain Bitcoin has a smart (not arbitrary) monetary policy and it is our users that will determine what future of it looks like. This is the future of token economics.
13. Partners
We are very fortunate as everyone in the cryptocurrency space is excited to drive adoption. Everyone we have spoken with loves what we are doing!
We are already working with many leading companies in the space and continue to build strong relationships on an ongoing basis with a strong focus on the application layer, rather than protocol.
Below are examples of some of the companies we are already working with -
- OkEx Exchange
- Jelly Swap
- Theta TV
- HedgeTrade
- Luno Exchange
- Axie Infinity
- eToro
- Iconic Holding
- Shapeshift
- Status Wallet
- Emanate
- And many more.
Please note these are not simply ‘partnerships’, but real relationships. You can find content from many of these companies on our platform live already.
And we are just getting started.
Get ready for adoption.
14. Team
- Harsh — is a serial entrepreneur and early Bitcoin adopter. Outside of working on Captain Bitcoin, Harsh is currently the CBDO at Iconic, a leading crypto asset firm and leading blockchain incubator and VC. In his previous roles, he worked at Maven 11 Capital, a leading European Venture Capital firm setup in 2015 and ran global incubator program WanLabs for the Wanchain protocol.
- Zoe — since becoming immersed in the space in early 2017, Zoe has worked alongside Harsh at a number of leading blockchain companies. Currently heading up Investor Relations at Iconic Holding, she previously worked at Maven 11 Capital, a blockchain and DLT focused investment fund and spearheaded European growth and partnerships at both Swarm Fund and WanLabs.
- Nick — PhD in Physics and 10+ years in academic senior leadership and research. Specialist in technology adoption, game theory, token economics and governance systems.
- Bohdan — Full-Stack Engineer. Blockchain Engineer and Ethereum Smart Contract Developer.
Advisors -
- Patrick — CEO and Managing Partner of Iconic Holding, a leading blockchain Venture Capital firm and global crypto asset management firm. Patrick holds an MBA and is a licensed CPA.
- Max — Venture Developer, blockchain enthusiast and VC. Max is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Iconic Holding and holds an MBA and CAIA.
- Balder — CIO @ Maven 11 Capital. Before joining Maven 11 Capital as a partner, Balder traded European cash equities for 8 years at boutique investment bank Kempen & Co, and therefore brings extensive knowledge in the fields of trading strategies and risk management.
- Proudly backed by https://iconicholding.com/
To the moon 🚀
