Learn Blockchain by building a bad application of it

To learn how Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) work, I decided to build a use case for them. I documented the strategy and considerations made to assess if blockchain and the use of NFTs help solve the problem, and if so, what are the main protocol and network requirements.

Just as I was about to solve a real problem, and contribute to the betterment of humanity, a fit of procrastination got hold of me and this is what came out:

ExamChain: A Blockchain solution for Education

Tokenising exam papers to solve the problem of plagiarism in education.

Copy/paste direct plagiarism is easy, but the art of mosaic plagiarism, patching together multiple sources to rewrite someone else’s work in one’s own words without referencing can be as demanding as coming up with an original idea.

No incentive exists for students to contribute to a fellow student’s exam paper and no system to reward contributions whilst preserving privacy of the sources.

I propose a solution for tokenising exam paper contributions based on auctioning non-fungible tokens (NFT) on a public blockchain (one token = one character) creating digital scarcity and an incentive for fellow students to contribute drafting the paper via a smart-contract buy-back premium contingent on exam result.

This solution promotes altruistic self-interest and collaboration. Lazy students leverage the know-how of good students to pass an exam without having to study. Good students capitalise on their expertise and are rewarded for helping peers pass exams.

To grasp the transformational potential of Blockchain for humanity we need to become totally open to consider new social structures and values.

This writeup is a stretch for testing such openness. The idea may be silly but I hope someone finds the reasoning useful when applied in another context.

The Blockchain Test

Do we really need a blockchain to solve this problem? This is the first test. Many blockchain ideas should (but don’t) die here.

Blockchain is not a panacea. with this in mind I decided to skip this step entirely, in order to leverage on the current hype and funding opportunities.

Other solutions may better serve the purpose, but if I just ignore them and focus on a blockchain application I will have enough arguments for a good Whataboutistic debate.

What About Blockchain? specifically for this use case:

• Automation: Referencing original content is a manual process prone to error. Automating the referencing (of citations and plagiarism) downstream of original content would create better knowledge trees and totally new value transfer models (Imagine a future where all knowledge leading to an invention or IP right had a partial (tokenised) right to that claim for example). Academic and examination papers alike are based on predictable and repeatable processes that would benefit from automation.
• Ongoing processes and loops include: 1) Recurring closed-loops: The process of writing exam papers is repeated multiple times through a study course. 2) Chain of referencing: ideas expressed in a paper may serve as the basis for future work (great inventions or a White Paper leading to an ICO and monetisation of the original idea).
• Multiple Stakeholders include 1) Authors of content (Fellow students, domain experts), 2) Students looking for someone to write their papers, 3) Investors, may participate in the upside of a successful exam by buying NFT’s to be used as ACSII32 blankspaces in author led pools, or even HODL on the tokens if they believe the ideas generated may lead to a future invention.
• Data reconciliation: Exam graders, scientific community and patent offices verify submissions to assess originality of ideas and identify plagiarism/ previous claims. This is hard because authors try to hide it. Eventually inventions may be traced back to all original ideas leading to it, with confidentiality of authorship, so everyone has an incentive to reference their original ideas to a project.
• Value Transfer: The Intrinsic value of 1 Token is = 1 Character. Digital scarcity is capped at desired word count, monetary value depends on expected outcome: Einstein selling whitespace NFTs in a not-yet-written idea have a higher price than a 100% NFT auction with no references. Ego value for owning a piece of the theory of relativity or evidence of contribution to it.
• Audit Trail and Value of Immutability: At the primary level, Proof of Authorship requires an immutable record to track authorship of original ideas. Like any physical-to-digital DLT applications, the problem of double accounting (issuing tokens for the same asset on separate chains) is dependent on wide adoption of the proposed solution. Immutability is fundamental to solve the problem of double spending.

Key Protocol Requirements

This solutions sits at the application layer. The use case provides clarity on Protocol and Network requirements, i.e. What blockchain Protocol do I build this application on. Some of the key requirements are:

1. The ability to generate, host and exchange both fungible and non-fungible tokens that combine: 1) utility (right to a specific character, words and phrases), and 2) store of value (which may go up if the content is deemed revolutionary, holds potential future value or becomes a collectable) or may go to zero if the content is deemed worthless or the exam fails;
2. The ability to auction non-fungible tokens. Each student may or may not disclose his identity, that of other contributors, past track record or future expectations, the value of each token could be different;
3. The ability to identify and prove Authorship and Ownership whilst preserving privacy; A contributor may wish to contribute but remain anonymous, be rewarded and have the option in the future of proving authorship.
4. The ability to run smart-contracts; Beside the management of NFT tokens similar to those used by Cryptokitties and Decentraland, the following smart contract logic is required: At genesis, each NFT is assigned a buy-back option, which if called on (by the holder of the NFT token) executes an exchange of NFT for Fungible tokens contingent on the an exam pass/fail boolean or proportional to the score awarded.

Oracles Problem

All above can be done on a public blockchain, such as Ethereum with ERC721 NFT and ERC20 Tokens in order to also leverage the wide network, user and developer base.

This however creates and Oracles problem: Who can Tokenise a paper / who is the authority for exam results? Possible solutions include off-chain reliance on a trusted entity or a permissioned blockchain with a proof of authority consensus mechanism.

Integration requirements depend on this choice but assume we remain on Ethereum and establish a trusted entity who will also manage a side-chain or off-chain platform similar to Wikipedia where text contributions can be made to the exam paper backed by NFTs.

Tokenomics

NFTs are initially acquired by the Student wishing to tokenise his exam paper by staking 1xERC20 token + buy-back reward. Then auctioned. Staked ERC20 tokens are retired if the NFT holder doesn’t exercise a buy-back option, or distributed as per smart-contract logic.

ERC20 tokens may be initially airdropped to kickstart market and can then be purchased with Ether or earned with NFT buyback options.

Focus is to maintain the bulk of traffic off-chain to minimise congestion and reduce gas cost, relying on the main chain primarily for proof of Ownership and Authorship.

Content curation is difficult in a decentralized network, if the NFT value is deemed too low to incentivise good work (passing exam) mockery and garbled contributions are possible, but a market could emerge with a reputation-based approach based on visibility on what other contributions made by the same author as a metric to assess value.

The Market price for NFT will be a factor of (a) buy-back reward, (b) perceived value of the work (to be) produced, influenced by track record, references etc and scarcity.

I have not elaborated a number of possibilities which may be inappropriate in the context of an exam submission, for example how a grader, who may not to like the submission and may be tempted to assign a low mark, could remove this cognitive bias by anonymously participating in a blankspace NFT auction. This would align everyone’s interest with the student’s goal of getting a certificate.

Conclusion

While suggesting an application that promotes plagiarism and corruption may seem a stretch, I have done so because:

1. You can’t really grasp the transformational potential of Blockchain for humanity till you become totally open to consider new social structures and values (I know, I said this above, but I like it). Even the really silly ones may have a pearl hidden away. Today plagiarism is wrong, stealing without gratitude. But shifting the use case to art (buy a Picasso white canvas token) or applied to research, with better referencing and traceability of the origins of an idea to reward all input that leads to a breakthrough, would foster better cooperation on scientific research; and
2. I am dazzled by the potential of blockchains, but frustrated by the many projects combining good use cases with poor blockchain strategy, or dressing futile solutions with blockchain to raise funds, so I wanted to take contrarian approach: combining a ridiculous use case with a blockchain strategy to solve a silly problem.

Investment Opportunity ?

The thinking that led to this research is not over, not all problems are solved. You can buy NFTs that give the right to contribute to a Whitepaper on the subject, with buy-back and hold arguments that will be well explained in the whitepaper your tokens will allow you to contribute to.

Send ETH to: 0x94153b7863a6eE2891D1c12B584840ED4D819222

If you would like to read a good overview on the use of NFTs, I suggest @philglazer’s Overview of Non-fungible Tokens.

And for a more realistic Blockchain and Education example, you can take a look at @heyfebin’s nice writeup.

The most important part:

My sense of humour is so dry that even I sometime struggle to figure out if I’m being serious or not. So in case you were wondering: please don’t send me ETH (unless it’s a gift, my birthday is coming up).

If anyone should be sending ETH it should be me, to you, for having read thus far. Thank you!