Looking Forward to Block 200K

Published in

whalecoin.org

5 min readOct 10, 2017

There’s been a lot of speculation going around about what WhaleCoin’s social network will look like, when a beta will be launched, and what capabilities will be available at block 200,000. Here is a glimpse of what is ahead.

Roles

There are four roles that will be created at block 200,000. These roles will have different responsibilities regarding the 33% of block rewards that will be going into the reward fund.

Whales

Similar to Masternodes for Dash, WhaleCoin holders with 1,000 WHL or more will have the option to lock them up in order to become a Whale. They will then choose a Moderator (Whales can be their own Moderators if they wish). Moderators have the power to send upvotes to followers on behalf of a Whale. Upvotes influence how many WHL token rewards the Blockchain will send to a particular Follower. The more upvotes, the more rewards. We are not yet ready to announce the exact algorithm that will be used for the 200,000 block. However, the algorithm will be designed to incentivize active participation from Followers.

Moderators

Moderators will have the ability to influence the blockchain by giving upvotes to Whale followers in a smart contract. The upvotes will be used to calculate how many WHL token rewards should be sent to a follower. Approximately 10% of the Follower reward fund will be used to pay Moderators. Moderators may have to put in a good deal of effort running reward campaigns so this is a necessary incentive.

Followers

Followers will be able to receive WHL rewards when they are given an upvote by a Moderator. This will be an easy way for beginners in crypto to get involved as the most complicated thing they will have to do is set up a WhaleCoin address for themselves.

Whale Validators

In order to prevent abuse of people using bots to create hundreds of Whale accounts and collecting all the rewards for themselves, all Whales must be approved by a Validator. We understand that validation is a slippery-slope which can lead to censorship of particular whales. As the network evolves, we hope to replace Whale Validators with a federated voting mechanism to help reduce the risks of censorship from a small group of Validators. Initially, validators will be chosen as trusted members of the community.

Network

We believe in the power of decentralization and the long-term benefits that it will have for our social network, so we want to keep the platform for these rewards as open as possible. Outside of the interfaces for becoming a Whale and releasing rewards to Followers, most of the interactions will be taking place on preexisting social networks. There are already norms for reward campaigns in forums like BitCoinTalk and even campaign moderators for hire there. We expect BCT to be a popular platform for our network.

Initially we will be running our own tests in Rocketchat and rewarding actions taken on Twitter, Facebook, and BCT. As development continues we will have plugins for all popular social media platforms making reward distribution more instantaneous.

In the future the possibilities are almost limitless as the Whales and Moderators will be making decisions about how best to put their Followers to work.

Why Use WhaleCoin over BTC or other coins for rewarding?

When you tip someone in Bitcoin or any other coin, you have to give away some of your money. Understandably, this discourages people from tipping all the time.

Using Blockchain rewards with WhaleCoin, Whale’s Followers earn rewards directly from the blockchain without Whales needing to spend any of their own coins.

WhaleCoin was designed to make rewarding Followers easy and fun. Earning WHL is free for followers. We believe that everyone who participates in the network should be rewarded; from developers to miners, and from Whales to Moderators and Followers. Each role adds value to our network and should be rewarded accordingly. In order for our coin to be successful we know that these rewards have to be intrinsic to the blockchain and not external.

But What About Whale Abuse?

There are some concerns that Whales and Moderators will simply issue themselves the rewards from the reward fund rather than dispersing them among a diverse audience. There are two ways this will be mitigated.

First, Whale Validators need to approve each Whale and Moderator before their votes will be used in the blockchain reward dispensing calculations. Approval should be impartial, the only requirement for Validating a Whale is that rewards will be given away to many individuals in a fair and open market system.

Second, Whales will have a vested interest in the success of the network over time. It will be advantageous for them to increase the network and demand for coins.

We will also be limiting the number of Whales to 100 before block 200,000 so that we can test the reward dispersion. These first 100 Whales and Moderators will be vetted before block 200,000 so that they can all start dispersing rewards at the same time.

Beta Test?

For Beta testing before block 200,000 we will be creating the first Whale account for WhaleCoin.org. We will choose a Moderator to run a campaign for us on Rocket Chat where they will reward our Followers on Twitter, Facebook, BCT, and beyond.

If you are interested in being a Moderator for WhaleCoin.org and earning 10% of all of the WHL rewards that are sent to our Followers, please dm @amberrayh on our Rocket Chat with examples of your previous success running reward campaigns.