The Blockchain University is Tokenizing Education
Knowledge and skill are the foremost yardsticks for assessing the development of any society’s potential. A Knowledge economy, therefore, is inevitable as we progress. It pursues a vision of incentivizing the exchange of knowledge through credit rewards in order to accelerate economic growth and general progress. By utilizing knowledge as a resource, a knowledge economy compensates individuals for the level of knowledge they share in the exchange process. The Blockchain University attempts to facilitate this commodification and distribution of education through its blockchain-powered database, one0x.
one0x primarily endeavours to create a record on the blockchain ledger for every individual, by tracing their educational journey across platforms, beginning with The Blockchain University. By recording every detail from both inside and outside the classroom, the platform builds an immutable database of your learning experiences. In addition, it works through a reward system to stimulate user participation and facilitate the exchange of education on the platform.
Global Standard of Value for Measuring Knowledge
one0x strives to create a global ecosystem of teachers, learners, and employers. The exchange of education will take place between these three parties through the use of Gyan.
In order to commodify the exchange of education as well as measure it, one0x has created a standard unit for knowledge termed Gyan. One unit of Gyan is equal to at least an hour of learning one subject or skill. Hence, the education acquired by any user can be easily calculated and presented in terms of Gyan points.
Teachers create courses and fix the total value of Gyan points for every course on the basis of approximate time required to finish it. When the course is completed in terms of classes and assignments, the pre-decided amount of Gyan points is awarded to both, the teacher and the students.
There are two kinds of Gyan used on the platform:
- Floating Gyan: The Gyan points earned by the users in a period of 7 days are added to their floating Gyan balance. This balance determines every user’s rank in the ecosystem and decides the level of their staking power.
- Fixed Gyan: At the end of every week, a user’s floating Gyan balance is converted into fixed Gyan points. This balance never goes down. It determines the power of every user’s vote in the curation process.
Since the level of the users’ knowledge can never decrease, the value of Gyan only increases as the users advance in their learning journey. This creates an unlimited supply of Gyan which further creates an unlimited demand for Karma. This system of currency and credits suitably fits the consumption of education as a renewable resource.
Tokenization of Learning
Another way the Blockchain University offers education as a sharable commodity among participants is through one0x’s own ERC20-compliant token, Karma. It is the world’s first ever currency whose value is determined by the collective human knowledge in the world. The increase in the collective knowledge of the society increases the value of Karma. Since the cumulative of human knowledge can never decrease, the platform enables a profitable exchange of education through Karma.
The token’s value is pegged to Gyan; the more Gyan earned by learners, the higher the demand for Karma leading to an increase in its value. Students need to burn Karma in order to enrol themselves to a course or take up any learning activity. This drives the token’s demand. It is minted every week and distributed among the peers through a subjective Proof of Work mechanism determined by the users’ Gyan balance, or on the basis of votes for the most popular content.
The subjective Proof of Work concept takes into account a user’s participation on the platform in terms of teaching, learning, reviewing, posting and answering, completing projects, and more. The more a user’s participation, the higher their Gyan balance. Users with the highest number of Gyan points are awarded Karma tokens every week. Through this process, the platform incentivizes and accelerates the exchange of knowledge on the basis of an unbiased evaluation of every user’s performance.
The Blockchain University encourages sharing and consumption of knowledge among teachers, students, and employers. An individual’s knowledge is converted into a commodity, which can be traded using one0x’s rewards model.
Users earn Gyan through active participation on the platform. The Gyan balance determines the Karma rewards. The incentivization process encourages users to create high-quality content for the platform and take up more learning activities. As a result, education functions as a commodity that is easily quantified and shared.