Author: Samuel

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ReddCoin

What is ReddCoin?

ReddCoin is a decentralized digital currency that was designed for use on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The idea behind ReddCoin was to come up with a crypto that would make it easier for users to send and receive money faster, efficiently and with as little challenges as possible.

True to the social media construct behind it, ReddCoin currently has users spread in more than a hundred countries all over the world. These are people who share different backgrounds, interests and are in different age groups. It clearly is the digital social currency.

So, how does ReddCoin work on social media? Let’s say you are busy browsing then you come across a post on Facebook that gets your attention. You click on it, read or watch the video and you are happy with what you come across.

Other than just sharing it, you can tip the user who created it in ReddCoin, and there is no transaction fee for this. What this does is that it incentivizes the author to come up with something better, and over time, we end up with an internet where people put in the effort to create engaging, useful content.

Who stands to gain from this? Creators and the entire social media populace.

What is the problem that ReddCoin Solves?

There are a lot of concerns that have been addressed about Bitcoin. In fact, according to most economists the world over, Bitcoin is not convincingly a real currency.

ReddCoin, like many other blockchain platforms that have been released so far, sets out to address some of the challenges that Bitcoin faces, and in the process, offer feasible solutions.

Medium of Exchange

There have been several discussions since the inception of Bitcoin, about its use as a medium of exchange. In fact, there is no doubting this. This is particularly when you look at some of the features like the speed of transaction, lower transaction costs, a wider global reach and ease of use.

Unit of Account

A majority of accountants and auditors do contend that Bitcoin is not worth being considered a unit of account. This is because it cannot be used as the base currency for tax reporting purposes or accounting. For this reason, it does not meet the threshold to be considered a unit of account.

Store of Value

There is a lot of skepticism from experts and economists when it comes to using Bitcoin as a store of value. According to the experts, Bitcoin does not have a fundamental floor value. It gets even worse, Bitcoin is currency whose value is not pegged on anything. Therefore, it is impossible to predict when the value will go up, or when it will fall, or even the stimuli that might bring about such changes.

How does ReddCoin Solve the problem?

Before addressing how ReddCoin addresses these problems, let’s look at the fundamentals. ReddCoin started out with PoW (Proof of Work) then migrated to PoS (Proof of Stake), and finally PoSV (Proof of Stake Velocity).

Under the PoSV model, instead of mining, users get to mint coins through staking. This is a procedure that anyone can engage in, as long as he or she has a simple laptop, or even their mobile phone. To proceed, they have to download the ReddCoin wallet.

But, what does PoSV do? There is a lot of resource waste that is involved in mining. Other than the resources, wherever mining is involved, there is always the prospect of an arms race and multipools.

These are some of the things that PoSV sets out to reduce. Essentially, it discourages the hoarding of coins and instead encourages people to spend more while at the same time increasing their contribution to the network.

The problems that have been stated above are key characteristics of the Bitcoin platform. The following are some ideas on how ReddCoin attempts to provide solutions for them.

As a medium of exchange

While Bitcoin might be a medium of exchange, the jury is still out on the efficiency of Bitcoin, and hence, its suitability to serve as a medium of exchange. Case in point, mining. The Bitcoin network is hinged on mining, which is a process that expends resources all over. Not just economists, but even environmentalists do agree that this is a retrogressive approach, especially for technology that is supposed to be changing the future and ushering in a new world order. PoSV and PoS mining do not use as much energy as Bitcoin mining does. In fact, this can be done on any computer, so anyone can participate. Besides, you can even do this on a smartphone, which makes it easier, more convenient and targets a wide reach.

As a unit of account

In line with the concept of a unit of account, ReddCoin raises pertinent questions, such as what is the ideal unit of account in the case of social interaction? Is this even a possibility? There are different ways through which social interactions can be quantified. Take Facebook, for example. Likes and Shares are precious. Those are the units of account, as are Likes and Retweets on Twitter. On Amazon, the unit of account is the number of real quality product reviews. In the case of blogs, the unit of account is the posts and the number of replies to them.

As it is, all these are important parts of our social interaction. However, they both have different units of account.

Therefore, there is no one size fits all approach to this. The conclusion from this is that there exists no unit of account when it comes to social interaction, yet social interaction is currently the biggest business in the world. And then came ReddCoin.

ReddCoin is a digital currency, the first one, to be precise, that is embedded into most of the prime social networks, and serves as the unit of account for all interactions in this digital sphere.

ReddCoin has a distributed ledger. In this ledger, all transactions are regarded not just for their transactional value, but also for the proxies in lieu of human behavior. For so many years, researchers have struggled to identify a feasible way of tracking, organizing and studying human behavior in the scale that social media has presented. Through ReddCoin, however, this is now possible, and this has also created avenues for innovative value addition.

As a store of value

ReddCoin does something that Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies that use PoSV, PoS or even PoW have not been able to do. PoSV was specifically designed for ReddCoin, and given that the aim is to have ReddCoin serve as the global reserve currency for human social influence, it does have a floor for its value. We are social beings, and as such, interaction is part of who we are.

What makes ReddCoin better than the competitors?

There are a lot of projects that have been introduced to the market in as far as digital currency is concerned, and there are so many more that are still primed for development. However, in this cut-throat market, the following are some of the features that make ReddCoin stand out from the crowd:

Competent Team

This is one of the most important factors that make a product better than the rest. ReddCoin is backed by a dedicated team who work round the clock to make it the best digital currency for social media interaction. Other than the team actively involved in the day-to-day activities regarding ReddCoin, there is also an active community behind this digital currency, which has helped to keep it vibrant and alive.

Tipping Platform

There is so much that users can do online through ReddCoin. This is a decentralized tipping platform that gives users the opportunity to send and receive digital currency to and from anyone from anywhere in the world. This is done on social media, and given the fact that the internet has helped turn the world into a global village, there is so much potential in this.

Content creators are now able to feel appreciated beyond the shares and likes that they receive on their published content, which gives them an incentive to keep working hard to change the world through their words.

Eco-Friendly Staking

The algorithm behind ReddCoin uses both PoS and PoSV. Therefore, it makes use of both ownership and activity. There are a lot of concerns that have been raised in the past about the traditional PoW and PoS algorithms.

One of these is that they generally involve a waste of environmental resources in terms of electricity consumption for mining.

As in the case of Bitcoins, this form of mining eventually ends up in a lot of money leaving the blockchain ecosystem towards paying electricity bills. This concept beats the purpose of an internet revolution.

The blockchain platform is supposed to offer solutions not just for the financial industry, but at the same time leverage on environment-friendly approaches. This is why PoSV is a better alternative to PoW or PoS, and users who are actively involved in environmental conservation will find this to be a concept that they can appreciate.

Redd-ID

The Redd-ID is a service offered on the blockchain which makes it easier for users to link their username with a host of other social network information like identities and public keys.

With this ID, there is so much that you can do online, without having to log into each account separately. You can seamlessly use ReddCoin across different social media platforms, tipping users or making micro-payments.

Redd-ID is a decentralized solution that sets it apart from most of the tipping solutions that are already available in the market at the moment. There are three aspects of using the Redd-ID that help in making it a unique service:

  • Username registration
  • Integrating the username into respective social media accounts
  • Verification of the connected accounts

There are a lot of projects currently trying to find a solution to the problem of keeping public identities and enabling micro-transactions. ReddCoin through Redd-ID offers a decentralized database that uses cryptographic proof of identity, and this sets it apart from other projects out there.

Redd Wallet

The ReddCoin wallet is unique. There are several security features that are built into it, which help to improve the user engagement and at the same time enhance security while using the decentralized network.

Difficult to Clone

Cloning has been a challenge for so many blockchain projects. With ReddCoin, however, it is impossible, or even extremely difficult to clone. Any successful attempt at cloning ReddCoin would be a fail because it would not be able to integrate PoSV from inception.

ReddCoin also has the advantage of an established brand, an active community, and infrastructure at their disposal, which make it virtually impossible for anyone to copy that which they have already achieved.

How can ReddCoin be categorized?

ReddCoin is a digital currency built to integrate seamlessly with most of the social networks. It is supposed to help users send and receive tips for creating good intuitive quality content that adds value to the lives of those who come across it.

What’s ReddCoin’s vision on Security?

In terms of security, ReddCoin is built on reliable technology. ReddCoin relies on cryptographic principles, implementing a decentralized, distributed and safe cash system. By doing so, ReddCoin overcomes the challenge of double-spending in distributed ledgers.

They have a security mechanism in place that protects the network against the risk of 51% attacks and DDoS attacks. To do this, the system has to expend resources before confirming transactions on the network.

Any transaction that has been confirmed cannot be reversed. This is because, by design, ReddCoin makes it impossible for an attacker to have the kind of resources that would be required to modify the confirmed transactions.

Examples of ReddCoin use cases/applications

Given the growth potential that ReddCoin has, and the social impact, there are several strategic partners that have come on board and are already using ReddCoin for one reason or the other. One of these is Phore Blockchain.

Phore is a service that is built to transfer value through an easy to access, standard ecosystem which is scalable, safe and flexible to meet the ever-changing needs of the users.

Linda Project

The Linda Project is another digital currency platform that is all about creating utility products and services. Linda offers a decentralized, anonymous, secure and fast cryptocurrency.

Resources

https://coincheckup.com/coins/ReddCoin

http://www.reddcoin.com/

http://www.reddheads.com/en/home/

https://www.reddcoin.com/blog/
https://www.reddheads.com/en/category/news-en/
https://www.reddheads.com/en/category/articles-en/

https://wiki.reddcoin.com/index.php?title=Troubleshooting
https://www.reddcoin.com/papers/PoSV_FAQ.pdf

https://www.reddcoin.com/papers/PoSV.pdf

 

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Synereo

What is Synereo?

Synereo is a decentralized distributed social network built on the blockchain platform, whose target is the attention economy. The goal behind the Synereo project is to build a project that encourages users to curate online content that is actionable, relevant and adds value to the audience.

Therefore, by a long shot, Synereo aims to make the internet a better place in terms of content and value addition.

What is the problem that Synereo Solves?

There is a lot of buzz about social media, ever since the likes of Facebook and Twitter came alive. A lot of projects release their manifestos, advertising what they plan to offer to their audience should they come on board. This has been evident, especially given the divergent shift from mainstream media to social media. The focus here has always been about user-generated content. All the control is given to the users, or at least the users are made to think so.

However, while there was a shift from mainstream media to social media, ownership of the service still remains a challenge. Of course, the people do produce the content needed on these networks. However, even with content from users, the social media service is still in the hands of an authority, and this is where things go wrong.

Given the kind of control that service providers have over the social platforms, they constantly find themselves at an advantage, running psychological experiments on the users from time to time through their feeds. This is done in three ways:

  • Selling critical information and personally identifiable data about the users to the highest bidder
  • Making user data available to spooks
  • Invasion of user privacy, and wanton misuse of access to privileged data about the users, without their consent

Given the challenges described above, there is a need for social media users to get back control not just over their accounts, but over the services that they are using as well. Data should no longer be centralized. Distributed data is one of the safest ways of protecting user accounts and data.

The social media industry is facing a revolution, similar to what the music industry has gone through. At the moment in the music industry, it is possible to build your own professional studio in your house. The same changes are happening in the social media space.

This is where technology is. Users are fast coming to terms with the fact that massive data centers are no longer necessary. The environmental impact notwithstanding, people need to start engaging and interacting with data as a service.

Bearing this in mind, therefore, the service providers are currently not serving up a plan in their manifestos, but an attitude. They offer a promise without truly telling their audience how they plan to go about it, or how they plan to achieve the goals that they have outlined.

At best, they are asking social media users to put their trust in them, yet that is not what people are currently looking for. What the audience needs is an engaging platform where they are informed of how they can play an active role in the development of the services they are using, and more importantly, how these will meet their innate goals.

How does Synereo Solve the problem?

Contrary to what most projects are offering about their plans for social media, Synereo presents an attention model that anyone who is motivated can interact with, or even build. Synereo also highlights how an attention model can be realized, and how to integrate it into an attention economy, on a distributed network.

The vision behind Synereo is that the future of the internet lies in decentralization, a distributed DIY system where users can create and maintain reliable communications infrastructure. Synereo is all about effectiveness.

For a network to be effective, the flow of information has to be managed properly. For this reason, Synereo uses an attention economy. By default, the brain uses attention to manage information. Attention is a valuable commodity and a scarce resource.

What Synereo does is to target the attention of the users, their activity on the network and social feedback, given that these have a very high power and can influence the reputation of the individual, and the manner in which content flows within their social circles and communities.

This structure is supposed to induce an element of social agency whereby value creation is recognized and rewarded within the network, thereby encouraging quality engagement. This effectively gives back control to social media users, given that they are at the center of all interaction and communication.

The network model implemented by Synereo borrows heavily from the principles of the flow of electrical current in the neural networks of the brain. Synereo creates an ecosystem where information is channeled towards a section where it will not just be utilized, but will also be appreciated.

As a result, Synereo creates a social media platform where valuable information is created and shared with users and in communities where this information is most appreciated. This, therefore, enhances quality content curation and healthy interaction on the network.

What makes Synereo better than the competitors?

Synereo makes use of AMPs. AMP is the currency used on the blockchain to propel the reach of organic content. Users can buy AMPs and exchange them with one another. They can also be invested to support the flow of specific content throughout the network. AMPs are also used as compensation, given to users who generate quality content by those who appreciate it.

AMPs can also be earned by adding infrastructure to the network. Users who have lots of idle resources are often encouraged to do this. They can add bandwidth or storage space to the network. Technically, Synereo acts as both an application and a distributed protocol. End users are in a good position to run Synereo on whichever devices they use, in the process getting complete control over the data they share.

Synereo makes use of two forces, Reo, and engagement. Reo measures the reputation of an individual as a publisher, especially when they curate content that is worthy of attention. On the other hand, engagement is the platform upon which Reo is built. Engagement, therefore, acts as a quantitative measure of how much an individual interacts with the content curated by another.

Reo and engagement are important in creating a priority hierarchy of how content should show up in the user’s stream. The higher a curator ranks in the community that is important to a user, the more likely the curator’s content will be visible in the user’s stream, in such a manner that they have a high likelihood of noticing it.

Reo and engagement are further supported by the AMP. Content owners can generate and publish content by attaching a specific amount of AMP. Synereo runs an algorithm to prioritize content.

This algorithm considers the AMPs used in specific content and makes use of this information to share the content in a community that would appreciate it better. Therefore, Synereo uses AMPs to buy the attention of individuals.

For the targeted users who eventually receive the amplified content, they also earn some of the attached AMPs. The higher the Reo the users have with respect to the curator, the higher the value of their attention in the community, and the more AMPs they receive from the post they access.

How can Synereo be categorized?

Synereo is a project that is creating software solutions and tools for users in the attention economy. Primarily, Synereo targets content curators and publishers online, by using a rewards incentive to encourage the curation and sharing of value-adding content online.

What’s Synereo’s vision on Security?

When it comes to security, Synereo uses methods that have not just been tried and tested, but those that have been proven to be effective. There are new cryptography protocols and primitives that come up from time to time.

Even with a lot of pressure and hype around these, Synereo stays away from such because such measures have in the recent past proven to be difficult to implement into an already working system correctly.

Implementing such would also leave the ecosystem vulnerable to a lot of challenges. Besides, as it is, Synereo does not lack sufficient security measures, so the need for new tools is uncalled for.

All messages that are in transit between different nodes in Synereo are encrypted by the SSL capabilities built into Synereo by RabbitMQ. However, there are plans to implement ZeroMQ as the main transport core for messages in Synereo.

Keys are exchanged between nodes opportunistically. This does away with the need for a certificate authenticity protocol because there is no need for a certificate authority. Certificate authorities are naturally centralized, which is against the basic concept of Synereo, a network that is fully decentralized.

The only problem with doing away with certificate authorities is that this creates a loophole, making these communications a prime target for Man in the Middle (MITM) attacks. Synereo has techniques in place to mitigate against such risks, including raising errors when fingerprint anomalies are identified or pinning common certificates on every node to a local cache.

For users who are security-conscious, you will need to make an effort and confirm node fingerprints through trusted channels when initiating contact. Over time, Synereo will work towards establishing iterations of current security measures to offer more protection for messages in transit in the ecosystem.

Censorship Resilience

New technology constantly challenges the preexisting power structures and profit establishments. As a result, this naturally births resistance. Most P2P technologies are not resistant to censorship attempts. Censorship never exists in isolation. Before censorship, there must have existed surveillance at some point.

Internet traffic is constantly under dragnet surveillance. This is information that has since been made available in the public domain following the chronicles of whistleblowers like Edward Snowden. This type of surveillance monitors different types of traffic.

Any adversary, therefore, who has the necessary routing equipment such as spy agencies, governments, ISPs and law enforcement authorities study the patterns of the Source IP address, Source Port, Destination IP address, Destination Port and the Data being exchanged, even if the data is already encrypted. As a result, they are able to make an informed guess based on what they find. This is what happens to P2P traffic too.

The security concern for Synereo is whether or not the traffic patterns of data transferred through Synereo can also be analyzed in this manner. Synereo traffic is concealed through pluggable transports, the technique used by the Tor network to obfuscate traffic on the Tor protocol.

For an adversary to monitor and block Synereo, they will need resources to filter and block a significant portion of internet traffic, which is theoretically a challenge. Besides, there are political ramifications of such actions, which they would not want to deal with.

Examples of Synereo use cases/applications

Developers can build applications on the Synereo framework. This is particularly for apps that are designed to harness the power of the Synereo attention model, and the benefits of distributed technology. Developers can use the interfaces available, or change the information and actions in their stream items, or alternatively recreate and create apps that perform different roles altogether.

Gateway Services

Synereo will enable gateways as part of their deployment plan. Gateway services are a solution for those individuals or entities that are unable to deploy their Synereo nodes on their own, to still use the network.

To do this, some services are centralized, giving the users access to technical resources that allow them access to Synereo as a web service. Therefore, all they need is a web browser to access all the services.

Third-party Services

Synereo is not built to thrive in a vacuum. There are other technologies and projects around it that will work together with Synereo. There are lots of micro-transactions that are handled on the Synereo ecosystem. Some of the projects that are linked to Synereo include MaidSafe and Factom.

Resources

https://coincheckup.com/coins/Synereo

https://www.synereo.com/

https://wildspark.me/

https://medium.com/synereo

https://blog.synereo.com/

https://blog.synereo.com/faq/

https://github.com/synereo/synereo.github.io/raw/master/whitepapers/synereo.pdf