What is a TCR?
In layman terms a token-curated registry (TCR) is a curated list of good or bad items where the items of list have some necessary common attributes.
To achieve this, TCR employs a system also called as game in game-theory to curate the items in the list.
Tokens are used as economic incentive tool to get the desired output which is the best possible curated list based on the desired properties of the list.
Why TCR’s?
A curated list for any item can be highly useful for its consumers as it saves time and energy for the necessary research.
A list can be curated by anyone ranging from an individual giving his/her opinions on his blog post, an institution like Interpol providing a list of most-wanted criminals, or a community.
As long as there are consumers that desire the information on a curated list and candidates who can gain by including that information on the list,
a market can exist between the value created by list and value captured by the candidates.
TCR’s are a way to make this kind of list in a decentralised manner, where trust is ensured by the design of the system and not by a central party.
Basics of the TCR system
There are many designs for the game system based on needs and properties, but every game system is essentially designed such that the economic incentives are aligned to curate the desired properties in list for each and every player in the system with the assumption that every player is rational i.e. tries to maximise the outputs from the participation in the game
Broadly TCR’s have the same structure:
It has 4 primary stakeholders also called as players:
1. Consumers
2. Candidates
3. Token holders
4. Listees
These players have some roles and actions that they can perform to maximise their individual output.
Use-cases for players
1. Consumers desire high quality list so that they can passively consume the highly curated quality content.
2. Candidates want to be listed on the TCR’s and become listees so that they can have the attention and consideration of the consumers
3. Token holders wants to increase the demand of tokens so that there is an upward pressure on token price
4. Listees want to remain in TCR’s so as to reap the rewards of consumer attention
System
1. Candidates can apply to the list by sending a proposal along with some tokens.
2. Token holders can choose to claim against the proposal, if none of the token holder puts the claim against the proposal before the expiry, candidate’s proposal is accepted and candidate is listed in the list.
3. If any token holder puts the claim against the proposal, a voting procedure is instantiated and based on outcome of voting, candidate’s proposal is accepted or rejected (there are many ways to conduct voting with many different properties, i’ll not go into the details)
4. If the proposal is accepted, token sent by candidates along with proposal are staked and if it is rejected, tokens are distributed to the winning group of voters
5. Now, to ensure the quality of system, any token holder can raise a claim against a listee and same voting procedure is followed to determine the validity of claim, upon which tokens of either the claim holder or the listee would be forfeited and distributed to winning group of voters
6. This way the list continues to maintain the quality of its items and remain useful for consumers for a long time
This article is highly inspired by this article on TCR’s by Mike Goldin
This is first of a series of articles on TCR’s and it’s use cases, more advanced articles will follow.
UPDATE: here is the link to article 2 focussed on economic principles of TCRs
