Introducing UTU Protocol Updated Whitepaper

Hello UTU Trust Guardians!

In preparation for the UTU Protocol Mainnet launch, we are releasing an updated version of our Whitepaper.

We’ve made a number of important changes to the model, added content in key areas, and updated the introduction to reflect some of the learnings and progress since the last update was published in 2020. We have tried to balance putting all of our learnings into the white paper vs. staying focused on developing the protocol and not getting too caught up in just writing about things. We’ll keep this blog post short as a highlight of the major changes and leave you to have a read through the full Whitepaper.

Our vision is to be the decentralized trust Infrastructure of the Internet, starting with Web3 and DeFi. Web3 comprises only five actions, five things a user can do, but each carries with it very specific fears that hold back mass adoption and often lead to huge losses for users, both to scams and honest mistakes.

UTU was born to help people take these five actions: Connect, Send, Swap, Stake, & Borrow. We have removed most of the clutter about Web 2 use cases and reframed UTU around the core problems it solves for:

• Connect: Is this Dapp going to drain my wallet?
• Send: Is this the right address? Do I need to do a test transaction?
• Swap: Is the real token? Should I really buy this?
• Stake: Will I get my funds back? And the promised yield?
• Borrow: Is the borrower going to pay back?

Beyond framing, we made a number of substantive changes to the model. The key takeaways of these changes are a streamlined model that more closely follows real-world trust and reputation, borrowing a lot from the Web3 Sustainability Loop.

The UTT-$UTU conversion auction mechanism in the previous versions of the UTU model was cumbersome and presented a material departure from how a decentralized reputation model should work. It seemed wrong to need to trade in my hard-earned reputation for the monetization at the heart of UTU protocol’s value proposition. Remodeling this conversion to a simple payout governed by a parameter eliminates the clunkiness of the auction and directly monetizes earned reputation over time.

Key Changes:

• Users are now directly rewarded with UTU Coin ($UTU) when earning UTT, instead of having to convert UTT to $UTU using an auction protocol. This means that users don’t have to “sell” their reputation in order to gain monetary rewards, but introduces an additional parameter to be maintained by governance (because there is now no market determining a conversion price).
• Adopted Ocean’s Web3 Sustainability Loop framework and extended it to UTU’s 2-token ecosystem, to make the lifecycles of $UTU and UTT clearer.
• Updated the reward and penalty formulas such that their computation in the smart contract are easier and less costly. Note that the new reward formula was already deployed in the Mumbai Testnet UTT. A disapprove() function and according UI (which cause the penalties) will be added in an upcoming release.
• Added Ocean Protocol as a strong contender to implement the data and access management.
• Outlined the general ideas for future multi-chain support.
• General improvements of framing, motivation, text etc. Particularly with our current web3 focus in mind.

Read the full white paper here.

About UTU

UTU is building the trust infrastructure of the internet to help users and platforms interact in a safer and more trustworthy way.

Starting with Web3 and DeFi apps, we provide AI-powered curation of trust signals from your network at just the right places and times to help you connect, send, swap, stake, and borrow with confidence.

UTU blockchain protocol transforms the economics of trust. You can Review-to-Earn with UTU Trust Token and monetize that trust you build with $UTU Coin. The UTU model pays you for building trust online, i.e. for helping others get good outcomes and ensures reputation can’t be bought or manipulated.

We believe in decentralization and privacy first. We are proudly based in Nairobi, Kenya with friends all over.

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To learn more about UTU, visit us on our website, Twitter, Telegram, Discord, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

Originally published at https://utu.io on August 10, 2022.