Utopian.io is the platform I created less than 6 weeks ago to reward Open Source contributors. It is going much better than what I could ever imagine and now most of the Steemit community is using Utopian or has heard about Utopian at least once.
The Vision
The vision of Utopian is to free the world of the corporate model, allowing everyone to contribute to projects from which the community benefits immediately. Utopian wants to make the term “project owner” obsolete, by creating a platform for Open Source projects to grow in the community, thanks to the community and for the community. It’s a Utopia, isn’t it? The only Utopia made reality.
Decentralisation
Utopian.io is meant to be fully decentralised. Utopian lives only thanks to the sponsors https://utopian.io/sponsors who have delegated their Steem Power, bringing Utopian at almost 4 Million SP. Utopian uses the SP to upvote the contributions submitted in the platform.
While Utopian is meant to be decentralised I am for now covering all the costs, server costs, collaborators costs, advertising costs. I have dedicated 30K Euros for this project to grow from my own pocket, but that is not enough.
Utopian needs to grow the amount of liquid Steem and Steem Power for the following reasons:
- Grow the upvoting power to upvote the ever increasing number of contributions.
- Be able to cover the ever increasing server costs and collaborators costs.
- Be able to create accounts directly from Utopian to fast-forward mass adoption outside Steemit.
And I repeat:
Be able to create accounts directly from Utopian to fast-forward mass adoption outside Steemit. I can't repeat enough how this point is important for the Utopian growth. Without having the funds to create accounts Utopian is not gonna survive for long. Other ICOs are happening out there, willing to do the same thing Utopian is doing. Utopian must find all the possible ways to fund the accounts creation and this is what I am already doing:
- Creating curated contents published by @utopian-io
- Seeking help from Steemit
- Now proposing Utopian as a witness
- Soon asking for donations
Having more Steem to fund the project is not the only reason why Utopian should be a witness:
- Bringing the voice of the Open Source community in Steem.
- Give Utopian more ground to drive the development of the next Steem features.
- Stay on top of everything happening in the Steem ecosystem.
@Utopian-io as a Witness
By proposing @utopian-io as a witness we are pushing probably the first witness driven by the community, for the community.
Utopian is already helping all the Open Source projects of the Steem Ecosystem to grow by a 1000% rate, compared to their growth before Utopian existed.
Utopian is allowing projects to have much more contributions than even before, while also convincing closed source projects to become Open Source:
STEEM Explorer Now Made Open Source: https://utopian.io/utopian-io/@netuoso/steem-explorer-now-made-open-source
Steem Dunk is now Open Source - Automated Curation Platform - Hosted version is FREE for EVERYONE: https://utopian.io/utopian-io/@samrg472/steem-dunk-is-now-open-source-automated-curation-platform-hosted-version-is-free-for-everyone
Can You Think of A Better Candidate as a Witness Than @utopian-io?
I am not proposing myself as a witness because I believe Utopian is a much better candidate than me. The reason for this is that Utopian is a project driven by the community and I am only the actor, transforming those decisions and feedbacks into new features of the platform.
I may also consider to split the master key of the account and give it to the main sponsors
Utopian is fully open source and if tomorrow I decide to go and live in Mexico (won't happen), Utopian can still exists without me. The Sponsors could just un-delegate to the current @utopian-io account and create a new one, the code is public and already forked by quite a few Github accounts and all the data is in the blockchain.
Utopian is transparent. Every single transaction made by the official @utopian-io account has a memo and will have a memo explaining the reason of the transaction.
So What is Your Feedback?
So What do you think? Should I propose @utopian-io as a witness officially?
A Special Thanks to The Sponsors
A Special Thanks to The Moderators
@elear
@espoem
@jefpatat
@arie.steem
@stoodkev
@ruah
@favcau
Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors
It would be great if you "Elear" would stand as a witness.
Yes ....
Seconded.
Makes much more sense.
@katamori I added a small part in the post that I forgot to mention that is actually critical:
It wouldn't be wise to give the master key... But as a sense of belief, it would be appropriate to give the posting key...
Hah, clever!
Here's my feedback. Stop using your "sponsors" to upvote your posts to $100+, or else you're going to end up wasting a lot of voting power countering what I'm going to throw at you.
Yes, it is unnecessary and makes the post look like mention spam. Utopian is also voting too high on some posts. I suggested a 60% cap which he did add but it is still about 160-200$. @elear can you change the cap to 40% (100-140$)?
I don't know how I did not notice this comment. Anyways @berniesanders as you know we stopped the bot and we are working on a fix. As @littleboy suggested the cap has been decreased at 40% so there is no way a post can get more than that. I am almost done with the new bot that will just be a consequence of other human votes by following their voting decision. The bot also automatically excludes now most of the popular automated bots, therefore the probability the bot will vote high on shitty post is low.
@littleboy if you read my previous posts, and you did, you know I promised to mention the sponsors on everything it is done in the name of Utopian and I do that. I have no reason to mention my own sponsors other than that. I already have their SP delegated ;)
I actually think it sounds very reasonable. Keep in mind, that a Witness does need to be a 99.99% uptime server, especially in the high ranks. If you are in need of a systems administrator (me) just holler.
I excel in AWS cloud management and can make you an AMI (machine image) that would require minimal setup to get running, as well as helping to provide any assistance later on. You know you always have my support.
I would really love it man! Lets chat about it in these days @netuoso
Great Idea, I hope that the github community will find it more rewarding if they can also influence the steemit plattform. Keep up the good work!!!
Hi, I delegated a small amount. So, I am now a small sponsor. 🤗
Not sure if I did it correctly ... I suppose.
Thanks @nehomar
I'd give utopian.io a witness vote. Though, it'd be good to have succession planning already in place. I.E. Backups of partial keys distributed to trusted steemians and a plan to hand over the keys upon your retirement. I have zero problems with you taking costs and a wage.
I am planning to do this in a safe way. It is very hard because is someone spots the way to generate the key, the @utopian-io account would be stolen. But it is in the plans @eturnerx
I should've said "trusted steemians". They could be biggest sponsors, your helpers, witnesses, anybodies' trusted by you and the community. I've previously used Reed Soloman FEC To give that "N of M" level of protection. Given you already trust those M steemians to a degree, that gives some additional protection because N of them would have to conspire against you. I currently use a 2of3 code (not RS, but my trust is high) on a much smaller Steem project.
My plan was actually letting them to vote to reveal the key. Once the biggest sponsors vote together to reveal the key, the key is revealed and sent to them. @eturnerx
Hey @elear - so first of all I would certainly support @utopian-io as a witness when/if you set up a server for it.
But it seems like the motivation for running a Utopian witness server (at least as described in this post) is to get more STEEM to fund Utopian. I generally don't think that making money / STEEM - even to fund an awesome project like Utopian which deserves all the funding it can get - is the right reason to be a witness.
I think that Utopian should run a witness server because it depends on the Steem platform to exist and therefore it should have a say in how the platform works and in the future development of the platform.
So I think it's a great idea for you/utopian to become a witness for the reason above, but I really want to avoid the idea that becoming a witness is just a way to make money.
Also, even though I suspect you could get into the top 20 witnesses in short order, I don't think that will make anywhere close to enough money to fund everything Utopian can and will be doing.
I very much look forward to the Utopian SMT and ICO which will hopefully bring in many millions of STEEM and get Utopian the funding it deserves.
I totally agree @yabapmatt and that's what I wanted to give as a message when I said "witness driven by the community, for the community". I will expand the thought. Sure Utopian needs also to run an ICO but we need to act in a short term and do whatever is possible to grow the power of the account, simply because there are already quite a few ICOs happening in a few days, willing to do the very same thing Utopian is doing. Utopian needs to go on the outside world and be known asap or these ICOs could throw us in the dark, if you get my point. While the witness could not fund the entire project, could still give Utopian some more ground to speed up the project growth.
Have you considered doing an ICO using a BitShares or Ethereum token and then transferring that to a Utopian SMT once those are done? Similar to what EOS is doing? I agree that you need more funding short-term but as I said I'm not sure running a witness server is going to really provide the funding you need.
I did @yabapmatt but without being able to create accounts directly from Utopian really makes little sense to start an ICO. I am trying to convince @ned to help us on that but I am a solitary wolf and I will do whatever I can to grow the power of Utopian with or without the help of Steemit. My main mission now is to fund the creation of the accounts and I am doing that by:
We need to be able to create accounts ASAP or Utopian may not survive when the other ICOs that will probably make millions by selling the tokens.
@elear what ICO's do you mean?
This is one @therealwolf fundrequest.io
ah ok - well. The site is not something I'd call an artwork. In contrast - utopian looks amazing and when the new landingpage is designed .. will be even more amazing.
But I understand your worry - as you have invested so much energy and time already and you want your project to succeed.
I see - I guess I was saying open an ICO first to the Steem community and see how much you can raise there. Hopefully then you might have enough to open the ICO up a little bigger and make accounts for the new investors, and then it could potentially/hopefully snowball from there.
I would definitely invest some STEEM into a Utopian pre-ICO at least!
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Excellent initiative @lear, I will make my contribution. I think that the community in any language needs to grow more and have more support. I still do not understand certain things, such as creating direct accounts from Utopian. But, what I have understood seems interesting to me.
Utopian witness would have my vote.
in my opinian everthing it is posible
wow its nice post keep on posting
Steemit is a blockchain-based social media platform where anyone can earn rewards by contributing quality content and rating content published by others streemit users
I'll vote for you
please follow or vote back
stop spamming
Thank you for the contribution. It has been approved.
You can contact us on Discord.
[utopian-moderator]
I agree if utopian-io will run for the witness. it will open more opportunity. for contributors and same to the project owners of open source projects. in almost 2 months time. it already rewarded too many contributors. and now rewarding morethan a hundred contribution a day.
@utopian-io has the solid foundations for being a witness.
promoTed & up√oted via @cnts
Goooo!!!
I support the motion
certainly would have my vote.
would have my vote !
Nice post @elear
I am still trying to wrap my mind around what you are going to be doing here...
yes I would
I'm just want to know who this so-called competition could even possibly be?!
I think this is good Idea.
Great post... Thanks for the Information... I live in portugal, but miss the opportunity
Eh, Idunno.
Who's gonna mine on behalf of UtopianIO? How do you guarantee (s)he won't have monopoly over acting on behalf of UtopianIO? How do you make consensus decisions on behalf of UtopianIO in issues?
@katamori I hear your question but how do you know that for the other witnesses out there? I mean the only way to judge is by the work being done in the community and how trustworthy the account is. For now I am behind Utopian and I will hopefully be for long and I think my intentions should be quite clear so far. What do you think?
...
OK, you caught me. I guess we trust even complete strangers too much nowadays.
I'm definitely fine with you, I'd have never delegated a single SP to UtopianIO otherwise.
Great job @utopian-io
It's a much better alternative to attempt self funding that up voting your own content as some other services do. I would support you guys, provisional on seeing what your choices are as witness. Do it! 😎
I think the idea that create account direct from utopian is very interesting and I will certainly vote utopian-io as witness.
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STOPGood luck with your project. I hope you succeed.
Upvoted and resteemed. Do you want to know why? Visit @pf-coin.
You've got my vote! I would love to interview you about the platform, how you got the idea and what you hope see for the future of the platform on our podcast "Decentralize It". Here is a link to our last podcast and an introduction post:
Introducing "Decentralize It" by @xosluman and @debraycodes - A New Podcast About Cryptocurrencies
Why we put our content on Steemit | #decentralizeit EP 1
Please let me know how we can arrange this and I wish you much success as this platform is the catalyst to creating more equitable and sustainable future for open-source contributors around the world!...
Love it
Whatever you decide, I'll vote for you or @utopian-io as witness.
I consider that @utopian-io is overqualified to be a witness! the philosophy of Utopian fits with what the community would expect from a witness :)
Hey @elear I am @utopian-io. I have just super-voted you at 9% Power!
Suggestions https://utopian.io/rules
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Up-vote this comment to grow my power and help Open Source contributions like this one. Want to chat? Join me on Discord https://discord.gg/Pc8HG9x
Yup, you should be a witness.