NATIVE: giving values to your visions and ideas

PROBLEM STATEMENT

It is no longer a dream of the realities the introduction of the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies had brought to the world’s economy. A decentralized economy where no central government, individual or organization can single handedly made policies that can affect the millions of it users. Since the emergence of the Bitcoin, hundreds of other cryptocurrencies had also been introduced and the cryptocurrencies world seems to be the future of the world’s economy. Every single technology launched on the blockchain can now be able to introduce their own tokens in which they operate with. However, these tokens introduced are to some extent having some limitations in terms of how they are created which includes the fund paid to developers and technical personnel to put together working protocols in which these tech can operates. This leaves projects with less financially ability in the dark and never sees the light since they could not afford to pay for technical personnel to work on their project.

The challenge faced today is that there is no structure for non-technical communities to generate their own currencies and no mechanism exists to value them against each other within a global framework.

Communities that wish to launch new tokens spend a lot of money to hire technical personnel and therefore it only leaves the invention of new project that might add value and improve the success that has been introduced by the Bitcoin in the dark because the individuals who had such ideas cannot afford the cost technically and financially to launch their own token and project. Halleluiah! Among the numerous technologies that has been invented on the blockchain, a platform has emerged to tackle these issue that has plagued the less savvy individuals who might have good ideas and vision to be launched on the blockchain.

WHAT IS NATIVE?

Have you ever had passion to do something and you think you will be tagged eccentric? What is that hobby you love doing yet feels alone? Do you know there are others who had same passion as you do? Do you know there are others who would love your own ideas and join in the quest to make it a reality?

NATIVE is an Ethereum based decentralized platform that provides the foundational structure in creating, valuing and operating communities on their own birthed local currencies and some necessary decision-making tools to guide users on the platform. It also provides a generic model that suits different communities that wishes to join the platform and providing technical knowledge for less technical individuals to partake in the blockchain ecosystem.

BENEFITS OF STARTING A COMMUNITY/PROJECT ON NATIVE

• RAISING OF CAPITAL
Capital is raise through the issuing of token on the platform rather than the traditional fund-raising models that are rigid and time consuming to operate.
• DECENTRALITY
Users can collectively make decisions through the platform polling feature.
• VALUE
The NATIVE ecosystem enhances a global recognition and value to every birthed token by each community and also an exchange medium to trade them with each other.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE ON NATIVE ECOSYSTEM?

NATIVE is a place everyone having same interest or mission can togetherly achieve their aim. Though, you might have a vision or an idea in your locality that seems awkward with the people around you, yet you believe some others will be interested in it. You are not alone; it is true others might be interested in it. You can own a community bringing your dreams to realities with those who share same passion with you.
The NATIVE Ecosystem comprises the Curators and the Members as explained below.

CURATORS

These are the initiator of a particular community or project. They can be termed the founders of such communities. In other words, they birthed the ideas that brought the community to live. Although, they might not be the only ones who had such ideas initially, that is why there is room for members to join because they had also been harboring such ideas only that they were not able to bring it to live. Curators are like administrative personnel of a particular community to ensure a thorough running of the community by promoting relevant and beneficial content that are published by members, in accordance to the general vision of the commission. For instance, a community that is developed with the vision of becoming a great “break dancing” community would not welcome ideas of learning how to sing R&B unless it is agreed by the general community (polling) to add such features to the community.

MEMBERS

These are the individuals who joined these communities because they also had such ideas and vision the community is built upon. In other words, they are individuals who are part of a community because it is aligned with their own interest, idea or vision. Supposing they were the first to initiate this idea on NATIVE ecosystem, they would be tagged the curators. Although, someone had already done it, they now have to join and collectively build the vision to reality as they would do if they were the founders of the community on the NATIVE ecosystem.
The idea of someone already founded a community aligning to their interest does not make them less important or some form of zombies who would be controlled or have no say in the affairs of the community. They enable rights; make ultimate decisions on funds to be deployed on their community. They can replace or be promoted to curators when they achieve task on the community. This encourages them to be productive to attain the curators’ position in their community.
Users can also be members of multiple communities since they might have interest in more than one project. This does not mean they can operate the community interchangeably, that is, using the resources of one community in other. This feature of the NATIVE ecosystem will be discussed below.

HOW DOES THE NATIVE PLATFORM WORKS?

Native ecosystem operates with two tokens, the NATIVE token (NTV) itself and the different communities’ tokens/currencies.
On general note, the NATIVE token (NTV) and the communities tokens operate on the Bancor protocol which is summarized below.

The Bancor Protocol is a new standard for cryptocurrencies called Smart Tokens™, which are autonomously and continuously convertible to other tokens in the network at algorithmically calculated rates. The protocol utilizes “connector” modules, which hold balances of other ERC20 tokens within a smart contract. The Bancor Formula constantly recalculates prices to maintain balance between Smart Tokens and their connectors.

Source: Bancor website

The NATIVE token serves as the Base currency of the Native currency in which every other community tokens holds stake in. In other words, a community token has an allocated reserved space in the base currency, in this case is the Native token (NTV), in which, plus other algorithm, determines the value of exchange between other communities tokens. In either way, depositing or redemptions, price of tokens are calculated using simple mathematical formulas as stated below.

PRICE = (Connector Balance)/(Smart Token's Outstanding Supply ×CW)

Where,
Connector Balance : This is the total reserve currency balance in the base currency. As users joined and achieved task on their communities, request and liquidity of such community tokens/currency increases, giving the community an increase in it reserve on the base currency.


Connector weights (CW): This is the extent in which community currency is volatile compared to the base currency (NTV) and other communities currencies on the Native ecosystem. It ranges from 0% to 100%. The lower the Connector Weight, the higher the volatility of the community token and vice versa.
The connector weight can be calculated using the mathematical equation below:

CW = (Connector Balance)/(Smart Token's total value)

BASE CURRENCY

The NATIVE Token (NTV) is the base currency of the Native ecosystem. It is the token in which other communities tokens in the NATIVE ecosystem had reserve in. Initially, NTV holds a reserve in the Bancor Network Token (BNT) which also determines it pricing compared to other tokens on the Bancor network. This can be modifies to stand alone as greed by community polls or voting on NATIVE ecosystem.
The NATIVE currency gives users the access to become members of community of their choice or interest.

COMMUNITY CURRENCIES

These are the different communities’ currencies on the NATIVE ecosystem. They hold reserve in the base currency that determines their volatility with other currencies on the platform. The task, activities and joining of new members into community determines the extent or weight these tokens weighed compared to other tokens.
The community currency also gives right to it members to participate in the activities of the community which include task and polling or other functionality that are attached to the token by it curator(s).

STANDARDS TO ATTAINED TO BE APPROVED AS A COMMUNITY ON THE NATIVE ECOSYSTEM

Before a community is approved on the NATIVE ecosystem, there are standards to be attained by the community before it is approved as main functioning community on the platform. These standards include:

1. Reserve Balance/Connector Weight
2. Curator - Is the Curator trustworthy? Are they an influencer?
3. Values Alignment - How much do Members value the Community and its mission?
4. Number of Members - How many Members does the Community have?
5. Member Activity Levels - How active are the members?
6. Community Fund Balance - How much capital is in the Community Fund? Has it generally been spent wisely?
7. Community Impact - What impact is the Community having on its Members and the World? If lots of impact is felt, people will be more inclined to support the Community.
8. Value of Membership Benefits - What are the additional benefits of being a Member? Are they valuable?
9. Current and Future Potential Revenue - Does the Community earn money? If so, how much, Is it redistributed fairly into the community?

The NATIVE ecosystem is so designed in a way that each community can connect to other communities on the platform and ensuring the Native base currency to be scalable among the different communities giving it the supremacy and avoiding single community in making it decisions that will affect the NATIVEecosystem as a whole. In other words, each individual community influences the Native ecosystem hence; there is need for Native itself to always check on all communities’ progress. This will help weak and inactive communities to buckle up in any way they might be lagging behind.

FEATURES OF EACH COMMUNITY ON THE NATIVE ECOSYSTEM

Communities on the Native ecosystem have the following features:

• USER FRIENDLY INTERFACE: Using the Web3 wallet, users can access their community in a user friendly dashboard that displays a comprehensive overview of all it activities, tasks available on the community, project proposals and membership statistics which include the total number of members, how often are new members joining and the impact these members are adding to the community.
• COMMUNITY CURRENCY: As has been said, each community has its own currency that determines it members value. The community itself determines the features or functionality attached to their currencies. These might include compensation for task done, ability to vote or make decisions, criteria in becoming a curator etcetera.
• MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE AND POLICY: Though community currency can be exchanged for other community tokens, it is still important to restrict the spending of currency to just the terrain of the community itself. In other words, you cannot use a token B that is birthed by community B to carry out task or pay commission for activities done in community C that has its own currency C. You will have to exchange Token B on the exchange rate by the Native platform for Token C.
• Other features pertaining to the community currencies include Member joining and alignment of interest.

For a member to join a community, the Native currency is converted to the community currency from the reserve the community holds on the Base currency. The amount of the currency to be converted is determined by the curator(s). This conversion will give each community it value as members join it. Making other communities that are weak to wake up and introduce good features into their community to attract members to join which will in turn increase the value of their currencies.

COLLECTIVE DECISION MAKING TOOLS

PROJECT INITIATION

In the Native ecosystem, communities collectively agreed on a project initiated by the community’s curator(s). Before this project is initiated, it must be ensured that there is sufficient fund in the Community Fund to implement the project. Curator must also ensure that there is enough time for members to vote on the proposed project and other criteria for the project to reach quorum.

POLLING/VOTING

Project initiated by curator(s) and members of the community vote if the project should be carried out or not, if the project has a maximum votes or polls (reaching quorum), the project is executed, else, it is voided.

TASK

Curators also initiated task for members. However, before tasks are initiated, the time, rewards and criteria associating with such task must be vividly specified before interested members can participate.

(See the Native white paper on pages 21 to 23 for more understanding of these features)

USE CASES

PROGRAMMING

Jasmy is a young computer programmer who wants to improve in his programming skills. Though he watch some online videos about programming, he still felt not getting it due to the inability for him to understand all that is been taught on the videos. He wish he could have some friends who had this same urge that he could learn programming with since he understands more when he learns with his peers.
Surfing the web for more videos on programming, Jasmy came across the Native ecosystem. He was surprise that there is already a community on Native that is based on programming. Not only does this community give good contents on programming, they also enable him to do some task on the community that he also earn some tokens that can be converted to real time currencies. He can also interact with other members of the community if he finds some syntax in programming difficult to understand.
Jasmy was happy. His passion for programming is becoming a reality as he joined other like-minded users to solve programming puzzles!

ARTICLE WRITING

Onome loves writing; however, she is not a good initiator of new things to write about. She is good with topics given to her by others to write about. In other words, she is not gifted in raising topics to write about. She owns a blog that she always publishes her articles and she needed to give her audience the best article ever. Every day, she brain storm to manage to raise a topic to write about. Her audience is being disappointed for she no longer published her articles often. Things got worst that she started copying and pasting other writers’ article on her blog. She suddenly came across this article and decided to check out the Native ecosystem if she may find a community that might raise topic for her.
Luckily, Onome found a community that gives tasks to it members to write about. These tasks include topics to be written about and other resources that can enhance and improve her writing skills. She is happy because she earns real good as she executive task that do not only give her audience back but she also made a lot from the community she had joined.

The possibilities of communities that can be registered or introduced into the Native ecosystem are endless, it is a matter of how members yearn for such communities to keep it active and giving it value in the Native ecosystem.

NATIVE CURRENT EXISTING COMMUNITIES

As at the time of writing this article the following communities are already launched on the Native ecosystem.

• Earth Guardians is a Boulder, Colorado based non-profit that engages young people in programs to empower and amplify their voice, specifically around environmental justice.
• Imaginal Films is a community of conscious film enthusiasts: filmmakers, viewers, and funders convened in one digital ecosystem to collectively develop, produce and distribute conscious films.
• SDG Futures is a decentralized and distributed communities and technology stack for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Peace Accelerators is a New-York-based non-profit that is committed to accelerating the spread of global peace by using a community-driven, tech-centric, and future-forward perspective to devise solutions that leverage emergent technologies for the betterment of humanity.
• DOLO is a decentralized open learning organization working to iterate towards a future of smart education that is more open, agile, and rewarding for all stakeholders.
• The Rick & Morty Crew is a collective of fans committed to embracing all things wubalubadubdub!

Creation of new communities is not limited to the existing ones. There is more room to create more communities as long as the founders are capable of keeping up with the criteria in the approval of the community as stated above.

CONCLUSION

In has been said that two better heads is better than one good one. The benefits of a platform such as the Native ecosystem are endless. Just like Jasmy and Onome, a platform that connects users of common interest and goals will bring to the speedily achievement of such goals and vision. This is because, users or members with join with each other to make decisions that a single individual will take a lot of time to achieve.
On the other hand, communities who find it difficult to start will be able to stand because the necessary platform and policies to launch such communities is already put in place. There is therefore no need for technical ability to launch a project.
Communities will grow in the Native ecosystem as they will be task to improve on themselves in their policies, rewards and tasks that will attract new users to join them. Every member of the community will have to work to ensure the token of the community has a better value compared to other tokens on the Native ecosystem because they all have a stake or share in it.

ANNEXES

TEAM

The team is led by Jake Vartanian who was inspired from his yoga exercise. Below is a gallery of the team behind the Native ecosystem.

ROAD MAP

Watch Additional videos for more understanding