Token-Curated Registry of Opportunities: a Walkthrough of the Flyingcarpet Testnet Alpha

The Flyingcarpet bounty heat-map, showing the concentration of opportunity-rich geographical areas that require AI model creation/execution and raw data collection.

Flyingcarpet Alpha Testnet was launched publicly last week. This initial alpha represents the first iteration of the platform’s feature set. This article will walk through adding your first opportunity to the heat-map, getting Nitrogen token on the Rinkeby test network and staking your first viable opportunity bounty.

Access using MetaMask on the Rinkeby testnet

Please ensure that you have MetaMask setup before accessing the Flyingcarpet Alpha dapp. You can download the latest version here. Alternatively, you may use any Ethereum-enabled browser — such as Brave or Mist for desktop and Status, Cipher or Coinbase Wallet (Toshi) for mobile.

Make sure that your Ethereum account is unlocked (e.g. log in to MetaMask). Next, open the Flyingcarpet Alpha dapp in your Ethereum-enabled browser and check that it says “Connected to MetaMask” and “Rinkeby Network” (see photo below), as the testnet smart contracts are currently running on the Rinkeby Ethereum testnet.

Ensure that MetaMask account is unlocked and that you are connected to the Rinkeby testnet.

Rinkeby Ether

Before continuing with the walkthrough, please ensure that you have a sufficient amount of ETH on the Rinkeby testnet in order to pay the transaction fees associated with the various smart contracts calls we require below. If your ETH balance in MetaMask is low, you can get testnet ETH here. Simply create a social media post (Twitter, Google+ or Facebook) that contains only your wallet address (copied from MetaMask). Then, copy the post’s link into the Rinkeby.io faucet input field and the ETH will be transferred to your account.

Get NTN token from faucet dialog

Flyingcarpet’s native Nitrogen (NTN) token is used to stake in support of TCRO opportunities. We’ve created an NTN token faucet to provide testnet access to the token. Simply click the “NTN” balance button in the upper right corner of the dashboard (see photo above) and then press the “Get 100 Nitrogen Tokens.”

Sign via the MetaMask transaction dialog, and, once the transaction is added to a block, the NTN tokens will be added to your MetaMask account wallet — the balance in the upper right will also update.

What is an opportunity on the TCRO?

Both analytics-hungry businesses and DAOs (via the Oracles API) require analytic insights from the physical world. Opportunities in the TCRO facilitate the sourcing of these required analytics. Each opportunity consists of the following:

• The physical location of the desired data collection (and subsequent insights).
• The exact type of analytics required (the specifications of the AI model required).

Opportunities may or may not require new AI models to be created. When a new model is required, our data scientist competition mechanism is used to source the model. For more information on the TCRO, model competition mechanism and how they work, check out our Whitepaper and Master Plan.

Let’s add an opportunity bounty

To add an opportunity bounty to the testnet, you must simply select the area of desired data collection and add details about the type of analytics to be extracted. To select the geographical area, use the dashboard map’s polygon drawing tool to highlight the required area (see photo below), then press “done.”

The geohash and coordinate fields will be automatically populated once the polygon is selected and confirmed on the map. Next, select the type of collection using the details dropdowns — do note that these fields will be expanded to include additional details as we iterate on the testnet and implement data collection bounty fulfillment.

Finally, press the “submit” button and confirm the MetaMask dialog to sign the transaction. Once the transaction is added to a block, your opportunity bounty will appear on the map. Congratulations, you’ve added your first bounty to the TCRO!

Select the geographical location of the required opportunity data collection using the polygon draw tool.

Staking existing opportunities

When you browse the TCRO heat-map and discover promising opportunities that are inactive (not fully funded), you may support them by staking NTN to capture a portion of the opportunity’s future residual royalty income. This is the role of the “opportunity investor” (see Whitepaper).

Details about each opportunity are provided in the information popup when you click a bounty on the map. To stake, simply click the “Stake NTN to Support Bounty” button at the bottom of the information popup. A modal will open, and simply enter the amount of NTN you would like to stake in support of the opportunity and click “done.” Confirm both MetaMask transaction signing dialogs that pop up (the first approves use of the entered amount of NTN tokens by the bounties smart contract, and the second stakes the token to the bounty).

Once both transactions are confirmed, you’re done! You now know how to stake TCRO opportunities.

Opportunity information dialog; press the button at the bottom to stake the bounty.

What we’re working on now

We are iterating on this alpha release daily, and will make subsequent beta and gamma releases. The gamma stage represents the final release stage prior to mainnet launch. Beta and gamma will include the following:

• TCRO opportunity challenge functionality — stakers will be able to challenge — by staking NTN — opportunities that are believed to be illegal or illegitimate.
• Fulfillment of data collection/provision requests — bounty hunters will upload gathered raw data directly via the dashboard to IPFS/Swarm to fulfill data collection bounties.
• First analytics-extraction AI/ML model opportunities — we are building four different models in-house to extract specific analytics for a number of business/DAO partners; we will integrate these initial analytics extraction tools first. Early opportunity investors will have the chance to be early contributors to these first models, permanently capturing the recurring analytics royalties. Please reach out if you’re interested in being an early opportunity investor!
• The data scientist model creation competition — the model creation competition will be used to source new analytics-extraction models for businesses and DAOs — beyond the aforementioned initial in-house models.
• Dataset annotation portal—we will soon be releasing our dataset annotation utility, enabling the creation of datasets from raw imagery for training and testing machine learning models (see the “Human Classifiers” section in our Whitepaper). Please reach out if you are interested in being paid as one of the first dataset annotators.

Get in touch!

We are continually iterating, improving and adding new features to the testnet. Thus, we are eager to hear your thoughts and feedback after you get a chance to try it out. Reach out to the team on Telegram!