FOAM Map

A little while back I stumbled upon FOAM and started reading their articles. The idea of ‘consensus driven map of the world’ was very interesting so I grabbed some tokens during the ICO. Partly to get a feel for the process of an ICO and partly because it sounded like a cool project and not too scammy like most ICOs out there.

Anyone who grabbed tokens during the ICO can add POIs (Points of Interest) to the FOAM map. I have started to add some POIs.

I have added a few around the Gold Coast including where I work — Enhanced Society. Have a look at the map.

The idea is quite simple. To add a POI you stake tokens, currently 50 minimum. This should stop people from putting wrong / spammy POIs. If someone does you can always challenge them and if you win you get 60% of the tokens they staked. The other 40% goes to anyone who voted in your challenge on the winning side. The people who vote stake tokens as well but they will not lose them if they end up voting on the wrong side.

So for example imagine there is a POI with 100 tokens at Burleigh Heads and it is labelled Currumbin. I could challenge this with 50 tokens. Then imagine users vote the following way:

1. User 1 — votes for my challenge 5tokens
2. User 2 — votes for my challenge 15tokens
3. User 3 — votes for against my challenge 10 tokens

When the voting closes User 3 will get back their 10 tokens. And the 100 tokens originally staked will be divided between myself and the people who voted for my challenge. So I would get 60 tokens. User 1 would get 10 tokens. User 2 would get 30 tokens.

A nice touch to incentivise people to vote — you only stand to win tokens.

It will be interesting to see what POIs end up in the FOAM map. The fact that you need to stake tokens to POIs should mean that these locations reflect the interests of the people who own tokens. If I am a skateboarder I might put locations of all the skate parks near me. If I have a sausage dog I might put locations of all the dog parks near me. Okay that last one was just an excuse to include a pic of a sausage dog.

But for me the really cool stuff is what is coming later like dynamic proof of location using radio beacons. Hopefully it progresses further and we get a chance to test this out. I would be super keen to build one of these beacons.