Upcoming 2021/12/22, Osmosis Updates from the Lab Guest: Lum Network
Osmosis Updates from the Lab occurs every Wednesday at 10 AM EST (3 PM UTC) on the Osmosis Zone Twitter Space. We go over all the latest news and plans for Osmosis with hosts Dynamicmanic & Kevin Berrey and co-founders Sunny Aggarwal and Josh Lee.
Joining us on the next Updates from the Lab on December 22, 2021, we welcome:
The Lum Network (pronounced “loom” from lumen, Latin for “light”) is a Cosmos chain focused on the buying, selling, and rating of transparent, auditable user-generated content (UGC). Their mainnet went live on Dec. 14th, and are they will soon be bootstrapping liquidity for their $LUM token in an Osmosis LBP running from Dec. 21–24.
Lum Network co-founders Fabrice Bascoulergue and Sarah-Diane Eck have been working on the project since 2016, which they founded as Sandblock Project in 2017, hoping to attract businesses in the user-generated content space. However, during the post-ICO bear market, potential partners saw the tech as too risky and undeveloped. In the absence of these partnerships, Bascoulergue and Eck developed their own mobile app, Surprise, as a working prototype of a cash-back app that pays out in crypto.
In 2020, having found product-to-market fit, the Surprise app was acquired by Skeepers, a French customer experience and engagement firm. At this point, in order to decentralize the chain, the team rebranded to Lum (from Sandblock) and launched the Lum Foundation to oversee development as a non-profit. At the same time, the Surprise app was renamed Lumki.
At the moment, Lumki is a France-based cash-back app that has the option to pay out in $LUM, but in the new year, the Lumki app will be turning on the main functionality of the Lum Network: users will be able to write reviews for retailers and brands across the Skeepers network, including L’Oréal, Fnac, Michelin, and many more. Those reviews will be stored on the Lum Network, go through moderation, and be auditable on-chain, as will the rewards.
Reviewers are incentivized with $LUM, and brands are incentivized via increased sales activity driven by quality user-generated reviews. Since incentivized reviews can be less trustworthy, the heart of the process is the trustless rating of reviews and reviewers, meaning rewards are earned according to the quality of the review.
How does this work? In this article, Eck writes:
To assess quality, we analyze several objective parameters such as the number of characters, attached photo or video, etc. We also include NLP in the quality analysis process, and in the near future, we will introduce a social proof system where the community will assess and decide the quality of the reviews.
I am curious to hear more about how this social proof system will work. If the Lum team succeeds in balancing the incentives involved in reviewing the reviewers and in sibyl-proofing the system, they will likely attract more partners among their target customer-base of non-crypto businesses and users.
The Lum Network airdrop was incentive-aligned with the Osmosis and broader Cosmos communities. $LUM was dropped to Osmosis bonded LP providers in $OSMO pools (minimum 30 $OSMO) and also to $ATOM stakers (minimum 5). They also used whale caps and a 6-month lockup with a 24-month vesting schedule (note: 30% of the $OSMO airdrop is available immediately in order to encourage recipients to help fund the LBP). Finally, they require airdrop recipients to perform two tasks: staking $LUM (using the 1 $LUM provided when setting up the wallet), and voting on a proposal. To see if your wallet qualifies, check the airdrop qualification site or the detailed airdrop rules.
Finally, a reminder that the Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool on Osmosis starts on Tuesday, December 21st and runs for three days. Read more in the instructions. The official weights and starting price have not yet been released. Remember, the reverse (or Dutch) auction mechanics of the LBP generally dictate a high starting price that lowers over time as the pool weights gradually adjust from 90/10, for example, to 50/50. It is usually best to wait or at least dollar-cost average.
We look forward to speaking with the Lum team on Wednesday, when their LBP will be in full swing. To find out more before then, check out their Medium, see their whitepaper for a concise, image-rich overview, or join their communities on Telegram and Twitter.
See you Wednesday!
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