Real World Applications of Crypto Simona Pop- Bounties Network
Introduction
Simona Pop is the co-founder of the Bounties Network which created an StandardBounties protocol in 2017 and went live on mainnet with the Explorer at the end of 2017. Bounties Network redesigned the explorer in September 2018 and made it fully responsive on mobile.
A bounty is a reward offered for an action. Because the Bounties Network is built on the Ethereum blockchain, rewards for bounties can be in ETH or any ERC 20 token such as DAI and SNT.
On January 31st, we spoke with Simona about the Bounties Network and how they are leveraging bounties to bring crypto to the real world. Following is a modified transcript of the conversation.
“Change the incentives / change the world” (Vitalik Buterin)
The Bounties Network believes in the power of incentives to change, mobilize, and organize global action.
Most people think of bounties as very technical tasks such as bug or code bounties. The Bounties Network has found that the bounty format can be applied to a number of different verticals. It is a very flexible format for incentivizing and organizing action. A visit to Bounties Network — at explorer.bounties.network — reveals bounties for a whole host of different tasks, including:
● Research — the benchmarking report done comparing ETH to EOS was done through bounty incentives
● Design
● Translation
● Art and Music
● Content creation
● Social and environmental impact
With a wide variety of bounties, the Bounties Network has seen participation at a global level. Contributors don’t need to be developers, or know the ins and outs of the technology to start working and contributing to the ecosystem.
Proof of Action
Bounties leverage a proof of action system, replacing the need for blind trust. Use cases for outsourcing work or task completion would normally go through a series of trust mechanisms. People have to trust that the people they are doing the work for have the means to pay. With charity, donors have to trust that the charity will do what they promised to do with the money given. With proof of action, tasks can be verified.
Key elements for proof of action systems:
●People can contribute to something without worry of where their funds will go. They will know that payouts will only occur with successful completions.
●There is secure and verifiable data.
●Instant payments are possible and contributions can be made from all over the world, without the friction of international payment fees or exchange rates. Today, this is typically difficult on freelance: users have to convert what they make from dollars (or Euros) into their local currency.
● Bounties can become long term income streams, and can be away of exploring alternative means of income.
Power to the People
Bounties empower people globally. They represent a new way of working. Blockchain enables people — and not only those from privileged backgrounds— to tap into and work on meaningful projects. Mobile redesign was key; the Bounties Network sees people accessing and fulfilling bounties on their mobile devices.
Use Case — Bounties for the Oceans
In partnership with MakerDAO, Bounties Network launched a Bounties for the Oceans initiative for World Ocean Day, in June 2018. This bounty is a perpetual one, incentivizing people globally to perform clean ups wherever they are and then submit proof that they have done so. Participants submit an image of the garbage they’ve collected with the location and date. The Bounties Network team has been blown away by the level and geographic range of participation. Many of the participants had never interacted with a blockchain application before completing the bounty, suggesting that bounties are an interesting way of on-boarding more people to Web3.
The team decided to run an in-person pilot in the Philippines. Many people assume that they can create product /app somewhere in the US and it will apply the same no matter who uses it so they decided to try it in a developing country.
They found unique characteristics. The Internet wasn’t available at high speeds and not everyone has smart phones with data plans. The only wallet they could download was Trust Wallet. The pilot ran over two days and people worked only two to two and a half hours per day because it was very hot.
Nevertheless, 224 people enthusiastically participated and collected 3.3 tons of rubbish. Most participants come from fishing communities seeking other means of income — as fish stocks are decreasing because of rubbish.
Implementation Challenges
Education is the most prominent issue that the Bounties Network has faced. A lot of the people in the audience had not come across terms like cryptocurrency or blockchain or the idea of a decentralized network. The team needed to break it down and express it through analogies.
Ten percent of participants had working smart phones, the Internet can be very slow, and data can be incredibly expensive. The Bounties Network team put up hot spots and onboarded participants.
The Project Continues
Quite a few participants are still fulfilling the same bounty project. People can go on fulfilling it until the Bounties Network stops it. This bounty empowers people and gives them a new means of income.
Fish stocks are dwindling. Fishing is no longer sustainable in many cases. Bounties could be set up for environmental, community-based tasks. Bounties can enable projects to tap into resources and find a global pool of workers while offering new sources of income to people.
