0xbb5eb035…8d92sent to0x5dc963d2…dbae·#9,748,302·view on Etherscan
SmokeSignal is the culmination of a growing conviction of mine, one that is surprisingly hard to put to words.
The core of it is this: A platform for public discourse can be built on Ethereum today, that elegantly solves some emerging failures of today's such tools (Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). These issues may be just as familiar (to the point of tiring) to the crypto-zealots as they are opaque to the rest of society.
The popular tools for public discourse are used as public utilities but are in fact controlled by centralized institutions. This leads to a number of problems. Deplatforming is one: an author who expresses an unpopular (anti-woke) opinion can find himself banned from the platform entirely. Vulnerability to states is another: Twitter is quite simply *not allowed* in China. And gameability is a third: upvotes, likes and retweets can be manipulated by sock puppets and bots.
SmokeSignal is a first stab at a system that may address this whole tangled mess of issues. Here are the rules of the underlying contract.
1. Anyone may write anything by burning some amount of Dai.
2. Anyone may burn additional Dai in support for any message.
In addition, SmokeSignal provides certain tools:
1. Users can hide messages that have not accumulated some adjustable threshold of burned Dai of support (i.e. "Hide messages below 1 Dai")
2. Users can send tips to messages they find valuable.
3. The total amount tipped and burned for each message is shown.
This should result in some really nice dynamics.
But rather than argue the point, I'll leave it there for now and keep coding :D