RIFOS — RSK — Bitcoin, a multi-layered development stack
In continuation of our report on RSK
Table of contents
Introduction
Technology
Team
Partnerships
Use case
Social metrics
Markets and volume
TA
Competitors
Roadmap
Token Mechanics
Token Metrics
Summary
Introduction
RIFOS is a set of protocols, rules and interfaces, for accessing decentralized services which RIF Labs expect most decentralized blockchain applications will require. RIF Labs call them Root Infrastructure Services, because they form a coherent infrastructure that decentralized applications can rely on. These protocols will initially include:
- Name Resolution
- Data Storage
- Secure Certified Communications
- Data Feeds (i.e. oracles)
- Payment Processing
Third parties can implement any of these protocols by creating a “Service Provider,” which is a piece of software that either provides all the service functionality or bridges RIFOS with other external networks that provide such service.
RIF Labs has signed an agreement to acquire RSK Labs, the company behind the creation of the open source RSK Smart Contract Network. With this acquisition, RIF Labs will take the lead on the development of both RSK Smart technology and RIF OS decentralized protocols, while fostering community grows and collaboration.
Technology
Architecture
RIFOS is a set of protocols that help user applications consume decentralized services. Protocols are implemented by service providers, which can serve user applications and also other service providers. There is no inherent RIFOS protocol hierarchy, but a protocol hierarchy materializes for each specific distributed application. In other words, some protocols can be “support protocols” of other service providers in some applications or provide the main functionality in some other distributed applications. The more protocols RIFOS integrates, the greater the benefit for the developer.
RIFOS is aimed at making the deployment of applications using distributed blockchain technology much easier and faster, without the need to provision any infrastructure services ahead of time. So, for instance, a wallet may grow from being a lightweight, SPV-mode application with very low storage and bandwidth requirements, to a full-blown multi-currency wallet, connecting to or running several full nodes consuming gigabytes of storage and bandwidth, without updating a single line of code. The change in functionality can be accomplished by changing the service providers. RIFOS is envisioned to enable a marketplace that can satisfy growing demands. Developers can integrate their RIF-compatible products and services seamlessly within the RIFOS ecosystem.
RIFOS services may be run by anyone. At the center of RIFOS is a utility token called the RIF Token. The RIF Token is managed by a smart contract running on the RSK Smart Protocol. Although RIFOS protocols do not obey a hierarchical structure, when considering RIFOS together with RSK and Bitcoin, RIFOS becomes a multi-layered development stack.
D1 refers to the RIF Naming Service that is deployed in the RSK blockchain.
RIFOS Core components
One key feature of the RIFOS design is that it accepts third-party service providers for the existing infrastructure protocols. Furthermore, new infrastructure protocols may be added in the future, either by RIF Labs or by any member of the RIFOS community, in order to enhance this open standard framework and offer greater functionality to the RIFOS user base. Any RIFOS component that conforms to the RIFOS design principles should be able to seamlessly interoperate with other components, draw on resources available within the ecosystem and compete fairly for users and businesses.
RIF Labs will initially deploy the following RIFOS protocols (also called “core components”):
- RIF Payments: A protocol to access any off-chain payment network, specially payment-channel based networks. This protocol should enable scalable, cheap and high-speed off-chain payments; RIF Payments enables the use of different off-chain payment networks that can be deployed on top of RSK, supporting both smart bitcoins and standard fungible tokens. The protocol provides methods with clear semantics to enable a uniform interaction between the user, a hypothetical RIF-compatible wallet, and distinct payments networks. The RIF Payments API can help build bridges between different networks. The open-source, open-provider nature of the API enables new networks to advertise their services using the RIF Directory Protocol. Each payment network gets a distinct address namespace so that addresses are always unique. By using the RIF API, services like Point-of-Sale gateways (PoS) can be built, and these PoS services can work across all existing and future RIF-integrated payment networks. The end goal of the RIF Payments protocol is to generate a competitive environment where payment networks can flourish to provide low fees and low latency, and that can scale to match the volume and exceed the performance of legacy credit card networks. RIF Payments also proposes a conceptual framework that is intuitive and relies on legacy concepts such as savings accounts, checking accounts and term deposits.
- RIF Directory: An alias system (Naming Services) protocol enabling name actions and 2nd markets. RIF Lab team believes that cryptocurrencies will grow exponentially in the next decade. However, to genuinely enable mass adoption, not only by the tech-savvy community, anyone needs to be able to manage digital wallets and assets. So, one of the principal barriers to adoption is the inherent complexity of the blockchain technology. Ease of use is key for reaching the unbanked and non-technical users. It’s difficult to expect a widespread adoption if users must copy and paste long hexadecimal addresses to transfer or receive digital assets, for example. In addition, manually typing addresses is an error-prone process, and a simple typo may result in a loss of funds. By adding a name resolution service, also known as “aliases” or “domains,” the probability of errors is greatly reduced, as is the apparent complexity of the system: the easier the technology is to use, the faster the adoption. The RIF Directory goal is to find different types of resources by simple resource names. Example resources are: RSK addresses, personal encryption public keys, social network handles, and so forth. In addition, centralizing the access to multiple resources associated with a human-readable name improves the RSK platform user experience. RIF Directory can also allow non-for-profit organizations to add transparency to their treasury management by publicly disclosing their names in the public addresses. As resource names may change over time, the system needs to be flexible to support frequent changes. Lastly, the system enables users to easily buy, sell and auction names, using the RIF token.
- RIF Secure Communications: Peer Discovery protocol for authenticated and encrypted communications. RIF Secure Communications Infrastructure (RSCI) is a protocol to enable parties that need to communicate to register their communication methods, discover other parties and contact them through their preferred communication method by using their public keys as a discovering mechanism. By using the protocol, Alice may publish her pseudonym on the RIF Directory, along with her communication’s public key. Whenever she uses her alias to establish a connection, the counterparty can look up her communication’s public key, and use it to create a secure connection, enabling pseudonymous communication among participants. RSCI aims to fulfill the need for establishing secure communication links between RIFOS parties or services. These communication links should at least assure confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity. On top of the properties mentioned above, it is possible to build additional features, such as group communications, non-repudiation, and forward secrecy.
- RIF Storage: Decentralized redundant data storage access protocol. The RIF Data Storage Layer (RDSL), is a protocol acting as a connectivity layer for third-party storage providers. This protocol introduces concepts to enable the seamless transfer of data and negotiation of prices between storage providers and clients over the RSK blockchain. The open-source, open-provider nature of the protocol allows for new networks to advertise their services on the RIF Directory. Most people take for granted the ability to store personal data reliably. Distributed storage networks are intended to afford anyone in the world with an internet connection, regardless of location or means, the ability to store their digital identity, resources, and sensitive information, with the confidence that their data is cryptographically secure and private. RIF Data Storage Layer enables different third-party storage networks to coexist and compete, so each storage network registered in the RIF Data Storage Layer gets a distinct address namespace so that addresses will always be unique. Using the RIF API, it will be possible to build compatible services that work across all storage networks. The end goal of the RIF Data Storage Layer is to enable a competitive environment where storage networks can thrive to provide scalable storage solutions with low fees and low latency, while allowing the users to store their critical ID information encrypted in distributed servers around the globe.
- RIF Data Gateways: Oracle protocol to access external data feeds. Blockchain protocols with on-chain smart-contracts must communicate with external systems through oracles. The RIF Data Gateways Service provides an implementation-agnostic protocol for external data consumption through Data Service Providers. Some examples of external data that frequently needs to be consumed by smart contracts are price feeds, and the state of foreign blockchains. Securely notifying contracts about the state of foreign transactions makes it possible to transfer tokens by building bridges between blockchains.
- RIF Explorer: Explores the services registered for every component of the RIFOS. The RIFOS Platform provides a set of abstractions and APIs to support third-party implementations in the form of RIFOS Service Providers. This decoupling enables the platform to switch to new, potentially more enhanced implementations as the technology of each service evolves, and new solutions emerge. In this context, it is necessary to provide mechanisms to register and discover these implementations allowing developers and clients to choose which one they want to use for their particular use cases. RIF Explorer is a service of the RIFOS Platform that provides the required functionality to register and discover third-party implementations of the RIFOS Services (aka Service Providers) in the RIFOS Platform. RIF Explorer extends the RIF Naming Service (RNS) capabilities to support the recovery of Service Providers’ addresses not only by domain name but also by different criteria, such as service type or optional meta-data.
A RIF Directory Implementation
RIF Labs has implemented a first service provider for the RDP, called RIF Name Services. RNS uses the RSK blockchain to maintain and control access to the name information. Therefore, RNS ensures the decentralization and security of the RSK blockchain. Although other RDP service providers may register in the future, RIF Lab team thinks that naming is inherently a service that greatly benefits from network effects, and therefore RIF Labs expect a single provider to be chosen by the RIF and RSK community in the long run.
The Design of RIF Directory Protocol
The RIF Directory Protocol defines an interface to simplify the use of addresses. This is essential to implement a mechanism which maps a user-friendly domain name to a resource (e.g. an RSK address). The system should be transparent: users should be able to attest that they own a certain domain, that they’ve paid the required fees, and the expiration date is clear so they can make payments in advance to reduce the risk of accidental loss of name rights. Also the design should consider the frequent case which different users want to acquire the same domain name, and try to resolve this before the name is acquired, avoiding costly dispute resolution stages. Last, the design should minimize the risk of name censorship and name squatting. Important to the design of RIF Directory Protocol is the RIF token, which is the preferred token for first-time name acquisition. The RIF Token is used as a mean to stake tokens at name auctions and also for paying a name’s maintenance rent.
Acquiring Domains
The Domain name database is interpreted as a tree. The root of the tree (called Root node) has control of all possible top-level domain names, or TLDs. The children of the TLDs are called Domains. In addition, children of Domains are called subdomains.
Any RDP name must conform to the following format: “subdomain(n)….subdomain(1).domain.tld”. Names consist of a series of labels separated by dots. The last label corresponds to the TLD, and childs always precede parents. Moreover, each label must be a valid normalized label as described in UTS46 with the the following restrictions: transitional must be false and use STD3AsciiRules must be true.
Obtaining a Domain by Blind Auctions
The mechanism to obtain a domain for the first time is through a blind Vickrey auction. “A Vickrey auction is a type of sealed-bid auction. Bidders submit written bids without knowing the bid of the other people in the auction. The highest bidder wins but the price paid is the second-highest bid”. The practice has shown that human psychological quirks and not just supply and demand drive auctions. Vickrey auction mechanism reduces the likelihood that a bidder will overpay for an item as well as it also increases the likelihood that the seller will get the most he can get for it.
For example, if “.rif” is the TLD and a user Alice wants to get the domain “alice.rif” (as shown in the previous figure), she can open an auction to this domain, make a bid, and if her bid turns out to be the highest, she will become the new owner of the “alice.rif” domain.
A domain owner can delegate subdomain’s ownership to a buyer without going through an auction process. For example, if a user Bob is the owner of “bob.rif” and Alice wants the subdomain “alice.bob.rif”, Bob can delegate the subdomain ownership to Alice without an auction process. From the domain level perspective, delegation can be executed through a transfer of ownership. Once Alice gets a domain, she should set a resolver that will make the resolution between the new domain and the desired resource.
Domains Address Resolution
The resolution of a domain is the process where the system looks up the name in the database, checks if it present, and, if so, returns the associated information. This resolution can be used in wallets, exchanges or dApps, to handle user-friendly names instead of complex addresses. For example, for Alice to send money to Bob, Bob first sends his registered alias to Alice, and then Alice can lookup Bob’s address, by typing the alias in the wallet application, and the wallet will look up this name in the RDP database and proceed by using the address information obtained by the Resolver associated with the alias.
Secondary Markets
While RIF Directory does not specify a particular secondary market to be used to sell domains once they have been acquired, there are already decentralized second market solutions for people to buy and sell them. If the demand is high, RIF Lab expects the RIF community to create new secondary markets specifically tailored for domain sells. Secondary markets may accept paying for domains with other cryptocurrencies, and also they may support other kinds of auctions, or simple first-in first served transfers. Secondary markets for domain names may use also the RIF token, but are not limited to use only the token.
Service Provider’s Revenues
Service Providers may collect fees from name auctions and rents. They may choose to either burn the fees, donate them, or use them for profit. The RIF token fees also serve to prevent name squatting, because owners must pay an annual maintenance rent for every domain acquired.
Locked Tokens
When a user participates in an auction, the RIF tokens offered are locked in the Deed as shown in the following diagram. A part of the winning offer, corresponding to the amount of the second winning offer, is locked in exchange for the domain ownership. The other amounts locked corresponding to losing bids are refunded to their rightful owners on request. The RIF locked tokens will be refunded to the owner when the domain is released, minus fees that are defined by Service Providers.
Annual Payments
To obtain and retain ownership of the domain, an owner must pay a recurrent annual fee called rent. After nine months from the last annual rent paid, the domain owner will have the option to pay for the fee to keep ownership for another year or relinquish ownership over the domain. If the owner doesn’t pay the annual rent, it means the owner is opting to relinquish ownership, in this case his originally locked tokens will be returned to the user, minus a fee defined by the Service Provider
Team
As a global project, RIF Labs has a growing team of collaborators spread all over the globe. Currently, RIF Lab has over 30 team members led by a founding team, which is widely recognized by the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency communities as being at the forefront of the industry and actively leading some of the key innovations in the space since 2011. RIF Labs have a proven track record of successfully delivering Blockchain technologies and highly complex products.
The leadership of the RIF Labs team includes the following people:
Sergio Demian Lerner, co-founder and Chief Scientist Officer
Widely recognized as a leading security/cryptocurrency researcher and a serial entrepreneur, Sergio has co-founded 7 technology companies: RSK Labs, Coinspect, Coinfabrik, WayniLoans, ASICBoost, Identiva Security and Pentatek.
In 2011, he joined the Bitcoin community and collaborated to strengthen the security of the Bitcoin Core by discovering and reporting 9 vulnerabilities. He also proposed more than 50 design improvements for greater privacy, interoperability, decentralization, scalability, and faster payments.
Sergio is also an expert software and firmware developer and has programmed and led hi-tech interdisciplinary projects. He designed and developed several security systems with strong cryptography and more than 15 different neuro-medical products that were government-approved and sold in Latin America to more than 4000 clinics. He has vast experience in the development of real-time medical systems, data acquisition, digital signal analysis, and algorithm design.
He holds a Computer Science degree (UBA, Argentina).
Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
A pioneer of web development in Argentina and Latin America since 1995, Diego was also one of the first persons to foster and develop Bitcoin and blockchain technology in Latin America, which he has done since 2012. In addition to RSK Labs, he also co-founded Koibanx, another blockchain company that is aiming to transform the potential of Bitcoin and blockchain technologies into real use cases, which serve as a driver for social and economic change. Diego is also co-founder of the Argentinian, with over 5,000 registered members on the meetups and 30,000 members on its online community and the first Bitcoin Centre in Latam. He is also president and co-founder of the Latam Bitcoin NGOs, where he helped create a network of Bitcoin communities with presence in 9 countries of the region and hosts the longest running Bitcoin Conference in the world (www.labitconf.com).
His extensive experience includes being part of the founding teams of some of the most well-known digital projects in Argentina and Latin America, including Clarín Digital (Argentina’s main newspaper website), Patagon.com (financial community sold to Banco Santander for 750M), Internet Argentina (first Argentinian ISP to provide ADSL) and Edunexo (provider of a SaaS platform to administer public and private educational institutions in Latin America and Spain). He also held the position of R&D head at ElSitio.com, where he led a team of 25 developers.
Ruben Altman, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer
With a long and prolific career as software developer and entrepreneur, Ruben previously co-founded software development company Kinetica.
His experience includes developing the first virtual supermarket in Argentina and leading the development of a pay-per-click platform for a European company based in London, UK where he lived for 2 years.
Ruben is a Professor of Computer Science at ORT University and holds a Computer Science degree (UBA, Argentina).
Adrian Eidelman, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer
With over 20 years of programming experience, Adrian was a co-founder of Kinetica (together with Ruben Altman) and was involved in the Blockchain Nimblecoin development. He also worked as a programming consultant for various companies (Disco, Tenaris, Microsoft, etc.) and was Process Improvement Consultant for Baufest.
He was Assistant Lecturer in Administration and Control of Projects I classes at University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and was a founding member of the Agile Methodologies community in Argentina and Latin America.
Adrian holds a degree in Computer Science (UBA, Argentina) and a postgraduate degree in Marketing (ITBA, Argentina)
Gabriel Kurman, co-founder
A regular speaker at international Blockchain conferences with more than 20 years of experience in corporate finance and private equity. He has been involved in the crypto space since 2013 when he co-founded multiple for-profit and non-for profit Blockchain projects.
In addition to RSK Labs, Gabriel is also the co-founder and CEO of Koibanx, a Blockchain services firm for banks and governments. Prior to that, he worked for Advent International in both Argentina and the United Kingdom where he raised a $1.65 billion fund for LATAM and acquired the LKM Laboratory. Before this, he also worked at and Monsanto in Argentina and USA.
Gabriel holds a Cum Laude Bachelor of Science in Economics (UBA, Argentina) and has a postgraduate degree in Capital Markets and Financial Services (Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, Argentina).
He is a member of Bitcoin Argentina and the Bitcoin Latin America Foundation where he co-founded La Bitcoineta project and Blockchain4Humanity, a global Blockchain social incubator.
Ariel Muslera, Strategic Advisor for RIFOS
Ariel has over 15 years of experience as a venture investor, advisor and entrepreneur in Argentina, Brazil and the US.
In July 2017 Ariel joined the leadership team of RIF Labs as an advisor to help implement the vision of bringing Smart Contract functionality and scalability to the Bitcoin Blockchain and promote the use of distributed networks as a way to accelerate financial and social inclusion.
Before RIF Labs, Ariel had an extensive career in Venture Capital and he still remains a board member of Properati (RE Tech) and Unleash (Inmuno oncolytic therapy), and an advisor in Venture Capital for the Latin American Venture Capital Association. In the past he also advised Santander Innoventures, the corporate VC arm of the Spanish banking giant which has a $200mm pool of capital and a global remit with a Fintech focus.
Ariel holds an MBA with Honors from Columbia Business School and has a BA in Economics from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. He has lived and worked in New York, São Paulo and Buenos Aires and is a fellow from the Kauffman Fellows Foundation, class 18.
Malcom Palle, Advisor and RIF Labs Director
Malcolm Palle is Chairman and co-founder of Coinsilium Group, the NEX Exchange listed blockchain venture builder. He is a multi-disciplined entrepreneur and early technology adopter with 25 years start-up experience and a background in the Mobile Communications and Travel Industries.
Since 2007 Malcolm has been an active investor in the mining and exploration sector with a bias towards precious metals; it was this bias that led him towards bitcoin and the nascent blockchain industry in 2013.
Malcolm is currently leading Coinsilium’s latest project, TerraStream, which will initially focus on developing a tokenized model to deliver alternative project funding solution for the mining and exploration industry. Malcolm is also the co-founder of well-established investor communications brand MiningMaven.
Eddy Travia, Advisor
Eddy Travia is a pioneer investor in blockchain technology startups and the CEO of Coinsilium, a London-quoted venture builder, accelerator and investor in early-stage blockchain technology companies (NEX:COIN).
In July 2013, following several years as a private equity fund manager in Greater China, Eddy cofounded Seedcoin, the world’s first global incubator of digital currency startups and, in May 2014, was named among the ‘Top 3 Most Influential Investors’ at the Blockchain Awards.
Eddy has led early-stage investments in 18 blockchain companies around the world (including Factom, RSK and Indorse) and has advised eleven ICOs which have collectively raised more than half a billion dollars. He also regularly delivers keynote speeches on Blockchain and advises corporates and regulators.
Joey García, Advisor
Joey Garcia is the financial services and fintech partner at ISOLAS LLP, Gibraltar’s longest established law firm (1892). He has co-chaired the Gibraltar Government working group on distributed ledger technology and Blockchain technology for a number of years and is ranked by Chamber and Partners as one of the top lawyers in the world in the space, as well as by the Legal 27 500 as an accomplished financial services expert in Gibraltar. The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission has recently introduced a new regulatory framework to cover operators in the Blockchain space and Joey has been involved in this process as part of the working group.
In addition to being an advisor, Joey is also RSK’s ambassador for Gibraltar under the group’s ambassador program.
Valeria Bystrowicz, Advisor
As part of the Blockchain Technology & Digital Currency industry group at Perkins Coie, Valeria has been at the forefront of the legal and regulatory frameworks related to virtual currency and blockchain.
A native of Argentina who received her LL.M. degree from New York University School of Law after graduating as an attorney from University of Buenos Aires School of Law, Valeria has remained closely involved in the Latin American ecosystem and spends part of her free time collaborating with entrepreneurs from emerging countries with the goal of contributing to the growth and strengthening of their entrepreneurial communities.
Miguel Santos, Advisor
Miguel is the founder and CEO of Technisys, a leading venture backed digital banking company. The company has offices in US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina and serves more than 50 banks and fintechs touching more than 60 million end users.
Miguel is also a well-known investor in technology-based ventures with high growth potential, where he can add value with his experience and network in the financial services industry in areas such as digital finance, crypto, security and fintech.
Alex Aberg Cobo, Advisor and RIF Labs Director
Before joining RIF Labs as a Director and Advisor, Alex was Managing Director Latin America at Minerva Project, overseeing outreach, strategic partnerships, media, and Government relations. Alex also founded his own financial advisory practice and served as a director at Deutsche Bank in New York and Buenos Aires. He has also worked at Morgan Stanley, initially in Capital Markets and M&A and later as VP in the Global High Yield Group in New York. Prior to relocating to the USA, 28 Aberg Cobo practiced law at Cardenas & Cassagne Law firm in Buenos Aires. Aberg Cobo earned his J.D. from Universidad Católica Argentina and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Cesar Levene, Advisor
Cesar Levene is managing partner of Estudio Levene, a legal & tax firm with offices in Argentina and Uruguay, advising Blockchain and crypto projects since 2014. Estudio Levene also represents companies from their start-up phase all the way to capital raising and M&A transactions. Mr. Levene has a master’s degree in international tax and trust Law in 2000, London School of Economics, UK, has advised several projects related with token generation events and is a founder of a Crypto Token Fund.
Partnerships
RIF has same partnerships as RSK, they were listed in our review on RSK.
Use case
RIFOS compliments RSK ecosystem by adding 5 new services which will allow RSK to compete with Ethereum on an equal footing:
- Decentralized storage, so individuals can store their decentralized ID in a secure manner distributed around the world, for example.
- Directory service, similar to ENS that also exists in Ethereum. It is extremely important when you are dealing with the unbanked people that most of them are illiterate so it’s very hard for them to manage public keys. And having the possibility of interacting with an alias.
- Oracling services will be key in order to have fiat-based fees, one of the main limitations to brought that options of blockchain technologies that in the case of the smart contracts, it is very difficult to predict the cost of the smart contract execution. So, having an extremely secure oracles, reliable information can be provided that will allow the platform to develop its fee at based fee so users can secure or ensure their execution cost related to specific fee at currency based on where you are located.
- Lumino network as part of the Rif OS services, and the lumino network is RIF’s version of Raiden, similar comparable to the lightning network that would allow us to do off chain payments with the up to 20 thousand transactions per second which will be key for those unbanked around the world that need to do hundreds of transactions a month, maybe sacrificing a little bit of decentralization in order to get lower transaction costs and not to be registering every single transaction on the blockchain.
- And there is also a fifth service that is related to secure communication channels that is also key in terms of securing peer to peer lending agreements on the network.
TA
Not enough history.
Competitors
Other platforms for consumer Dapps: ETH, EOS, Cardano, Tron, Tezos, Quantum, Icon, Aeternity, Lisk, RChain, GXChain, Nuls and more.
Roadmap
TBA
Token Mechanics
The RIF Token is intended to be a utility token allowing any token holder to consume all of the services that are compatible with the architecture of and integrated to the RIFOS. Such services may include third party-developed infrastructure services, and any other apps that might be deployed on our protocol that agrees to accept RIF Tokens as a means of accessing/consuming the service or app.
While RIF Lab will not limit or prevent the possibility for third party service providers to accept tokens other than the RIF Token (for example their own native tokens or other cryptocurrencies), the integration with RIFOS will require such service providers to accept RIF Tokens, since RIF Lab believe that having a common consumption token option across all services will benefit developers by simplifying their setup and avoiding distortions around pricing for the multiple infrastructure services that will be required to develop Blockchain-based applications. The RIFOS may also integrate tools and mechanisms to allow for incentive programmes (think bonus points or loyalty programmes) for companies and developers that choose to allow the consumption of or access to their services through the use of RIF Tokens. Such incentive programmes will be aimed at generating a positive network effect for the use of RIF Tokens within the ecosystem.
Long term sustainability of RIF Labs and the RIFOS
As a purpose-based company, RIF Labs’ future earnings should be re-invested to benefit the growth of the RIFOS and its long term objectives. It is therefore important to assess potential sources of revenue for RIF Labs in the coming years, as the RIFOS is built up. RIF Lab believe that as the adoption of the RIFOS increases, RIF Labs could potentially generate revenue from at least the following two sources: a. Revenue from the Smart Contract processing fees: The RSK Smart Protocol charges a small fee in RBTC as gas for processing and executing each Smart Contract deployed on the protocol. As part of the acquisition of RSK Labs’ assets and IP, RIF Labs will be entitled to a percentage of this revenue stream. While initially this number will be insignificant, as the volume of smart contract processing grows, this might become a steady source of income for RIF Labs. b. Ecosystem Partnerships: In connection with the promotional activities for the RIFOS ecosystem, RIF Labs plans to establish strategic partnerships in different parts of the world with start-up accelerators, incubators, education programme providers, event organisers, etc. These partnerships might provide additional revenue streams for RIF Labs. RIF Lab believe that Blockchain-based applications can transform the way we exchange value in the coming decade. RIF Labs is therefore proposing to create the necessary infrastructure and partner up with businesses and other institutions who will contribute to help our vision materialize.
Token Metrics
Initial allocation
- A total of 1 billion RIF Tokens will be created by RIF Labs at the Token Generation Event.
- Approximately 35%-40% will be allocated to the private sale contributors. The initial price of RIF Tokens will be set in BTC. Further details relating to the private sale will be disclosed in the relevant contribution agreements and associated documentation.
- Approximately 40% will be kept by RIF Labs, unlocked at a rate 1/60th every month for 5 years after the Token Sale and used primarily as a way to promote and increase the adoption of the RIFOS as indicated in this document.
- 20% will be distributed to RSK Labs’ shareholders, founders and management team as consideration for the acquisition of all RSK Labs’ assets and IP, and as a way to align the 21 team long term with the RIF project. These tokens will be unlocked at a rate of 1/48th every month for 4 years after the Token Sale ends, with an initial cliff of 6 months.
- RIF Lab plans to raise the equivalent of 20,000 BTC +/- 10%, but they reserve the right to conclude the Token Sale at any time after they reach 15,000 BTC or its equivalent in such other cryptocurrencies that they may decide to accept.
- While RIF Lab doesn’t plan to do a public sale of tokens, RIF Labs will initially earmark 21 million RIF Tokens for early adopters of the RIFOS through a set of bounty and early adoption incentive programmes.
Summary
Team: Good team with experts from various fields, but in comparison to other projects team lacks experienced personnel from top tech companies
Idea: Even more Ethereum capabilities for BTC, service layer for RSK
Whitepaper: Whitepaper is more about the vision and team than about the technology.
Roadmap: TBA
RIFOS is a next step for RSK, which made this whole BTC-based ecosystem even more capable as a competitor of Ethtereum. RIFOS plans to add 5 services one of which is already launched (RIF Directory) and one more is planned to be launched on Consensus (RIF Lumino Payments). It is quite hard to make any conclusions about this project since it doesn’t work as it is planned to be yet. The team actively participates in different meetups and conferences. Since there was no ICO this project didn’t generate much hype and so community is quite small.
There is some problem with project’s transparency — a lot of people in the community want to know how the money are spent (simple Use of Proceeds would suffice) and to have at least some kind of roadmap. No such info was provided and some dubious analogy was made (Like Apple doesn’t disclose it’s roadmap, why do you expect us to do so?) by admins, and to make thing worse a lod of FUD about market making was spammed. This turned into an ugly situation which ended with some bans and what’s hard to understand — deletion of messages.
To sum it up, this is a promising project which can achieve great heights if the team deploys all the services in a timely manner and will nourish the ecosystem with strong partnerships. This project needs to attract user base to make it competitive, since it has quite a late start. Also, same IMHO advice, as with RSK — this project needs to be more transparent and maybe hire a good CM to manage community better.
