SELF is Backed by Economic Theory & Blockchain
JC is currently a professor of Interactive Design at Taipei Tech and holds a Ph.D in Computer Science at the National Taipei University, and has been with the SELF team for more than half a year now. As a co-founder of the project and a senior KOL in the blockchain industry, what expectations does he have for SELF CHAIN?
The former half of the article provided a look into the major problems with blockchain and the solutions that the SELF proposal gives. In this half, JC will talk about the various aspects of the project that requires blockchain to succeed. In the end, what the SELF team is trying to achieve is a harmonious balance between virtuality and reality, meaning as important as the project itself is, the longevity of blockchain is equally integral to reshaping the world as we know it.
SELF has Solid Economic Theory Backing
“When designing the SELF ecosystem with Jack, he proposed the concept of ‘mutually beneficial,’ aiming to let SELF users receive rewards based on their consumption and promotion behavior. This is just like Bitcoin mining, using mining rewards to foster the growth of the ecosystem and gain the trust of the users. I believe this is good, transparent, helps all parties, and encourages everyone to hold others accountable and reap deserved benefits. This is the essence of blockchain. Think about it, blockchain can even solve problems in the film industry by eliminating scalping and counterfeits. It will naturally promote leisure spending.”
In order to ground the circulation mechanism of the cryptocurrency on a theoretical basis, JC invited a good friend of his, Tom Lam, with a Ph.D. in Economics in the University of Chicago, to serve as the chief economist of SELF CHAIN. Tom has calculated the algorithm behind the SELF reward system. “Domestic films are not doing so well, but most times it isn’t because the movie or director is bad, but because there is not enough incentives to stir the masses to watch and be amazed,” JC points out.
The mechanism within SELF is designed from an economic standpoint: if a person’s consumption and promotion is considered as mining behavior, then like mining, this person should acquire rewards (Bitcoin mining is simply providing processing power and network to facilitate calculations). This is then a practical reason for people to go to the theaters and support domestic films, allowing more opportunities for the industry to grow.
Is This Possible Without Blockchain?
“This is achievable without blockchain!” “Isn’t this basically bonus points?” These questions are ones that friends ask JC the most often. Is it actually possible?
Of course not!
First, blockchain is not a cure-all, nor is it a superspeed alien device. Blockchain is nothing more than “the next generation Internet better equipped to handle money.” Cars are just faster horses, Email is just a faster and digital version of mailing. Blockchain is “just” improving what the past network lacked in, making it more convenient for funds to be brought in and circulated. Think about how many years it took the Internet to let you enter your credit card information onto the Uber App, how long did it take for you to try online shopping for the first time? Blockchain also makes it easier to create viable business models. Think about how long it took for Apple to build the software and content payment model. All of this comes with a decentralized internet, allowing us to break free from the grasps of conglomerates and decide for ourselves the value of our data and behavior.
Not Simply Reward Points, But Blockchain Smart Contract Scores
SELF indeed has similarities to the reward point mechanisms found in credit cards, but the majority of current reward systems such as APPLE PAY, LINE PAY, and Happy Go, are controlled by huge businesses with many users. These systems are too large and bureaucratic to give each independent merchant sales data to better understand customer response or to give rewards to users. However, blockchain consumption uses your wallet as your account, where merchants can easily and directly interact with customers through wallet addresses. They can send customers tokens or coupons, attracting customers to visit again.
Combined with the smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, merchants can give certain rewards back directly to their consumers for their contributions through SELF CHAIN. Since blockchain technology and smart contracts are inherently untamperable, transparent, and automatic, the whole interaction between merchant and consumer no longer requires departmental authorization or a bank to process agreements. Through the help of nodes and miners on the blockchain network, everything can complete itself.
Points That Freely Circulate Around The World
Blockchain has no borders. It is an ecosystem that can facilitate merchant-consumer relations in any corner of the world. Whether it is SELF, the SELF ticket, or the SELFER character card game, as long as they are in thousands of blockchain wallet apps and thousands digital asset exchanges, they will be able to circulate around the world the moment it is released. A bar in San Fransisco, a theater in Thailand, so as long as they are willing to develop Ethereum’s Dapp to receive SELF digital assets as a form of payment, they quintessentially join SELF ecosystem. There is no need to request data from large companies, or follow byzantine technical procedures to do technical docking and API splicing. Ethereum has become the largest and most open-source Google. And SELF is an entertainment consumer application attached to it.
What Blockchain Means to Humanity
For JC, the biggest impact blockchain has on humanity is: the opportunity for us to rethink the essence of things. “What’s money? What’s value?” Money should represent two concepts: Record and Transfer. “In this world, does money still such values?” As an educator, JC wishes to get more people thinking by integrating the industry, research, education, and practice, to have them see that what they take for granted is not always so. “People are active animals, so we often forget to explore the essence of things again and again: Is this really true? Or has it changed? For new technologies and new industrial ecosystems, you can choose either to try to understand then reject or you can never make that effort (and ignorantly reject).
Suddenly, JC thought of A One and a Two the last movie by renowned New Taiwan Cinema director Edward Yang. “That is my favorite movie. In the movie, the eight year-old boy Yang Yang always has a camera, taking snapshots of the back of people’s heads.” JC then makes an unusual conclusion: “Blockchain’s emergence, is like these snapshots of the back of our heads. We all may know, and we should know, that in the past we didn’t understand much, but now that someone has put effort into materializing it, maybe we should take a look.”
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