I give you this thought experiment to use Steem for real crowdfunding.
Premise:
I want to raise 1000 steem dollar for my new watch brand. I see all the money steem posts generate so I make a steem post and wait for the money to come.
But how could I ever get likes from people that do not believe in my startup idea do not care, or like the idea but don't see it in the stream of blog posts made every second?
Come in: Dominant Assurance Contracts
"What a dominant assurance contract adds is that the entrepreneur agreeing to produce the public good if k or more pledge also agrees that if fewer than k pledge he will pay a prize to those who did pledge. Pledging is now a no-lose proposition–if enough people pledge you get the public good and if not enough pledge you get the prize. A contract like this makes it a dominant strategy to pledge and so the public good is funded. (See http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/08/a-test-of-dominant-assurance-contracts.html)."
If people upvote this post until the 1000 dollar threshold is made I will build the watch and people can enjoy this new brand.
If my watch brand will not get upvotes untill 1000 steem dollar I will distribute all the steem dollar proceeds evenly to the people that gave me a upvote or send me steem dollars.
But Christianovich, how do we know you don't run off with the steem dollars and we don't see you or the watch ever again?
Here comes the magic. If it would be possible to create a smart contract in a username that has this behaviour programmed in itself. People could trust they would get their fair share of the upvotes if the threshold would not be met. If it would be met the watch will get made:
In short: The smart contract user creates this post and sets the time limit to say 30 days. -> people vote the smart contract post up if they like the proposition.
If the threshold is met the smart contract user will transfer the 1000 steem dollar or more to my account and I will create the new watch brand. If the threshold is not met the smart contract user will send everyone that upvoted a share of the upvoted dollars back.
But if the if the threshold is met, how do you we know that you are really going to make the watch?
This would be the tricky part. How to control something in the real world without control. Several solutions can be thought of:
- You can’t and have to trust me on my blue eyes.
- Before I can set up the smartcontract user I have to stake a considerable amount in the smart contract itself that I only get back if the watch gets made. But who will control this? Probably a oracle service that should control this or my blue eyes again.
Anyhow maybe anyone else has a solution for the real world problem. But I think this would be great feature!!
My question:
Is it possible to create a smart contract inside a user or on the graphene blockchain?
P.S. I'm really building a new watch brand, so to put the case to the test please upvote me to 1000 steem dollar, if not, I will share the upvote money with the people that upvoted this post :)