District0x is a decentralised peer to peer network built through the combination of Ethereum Network, Aragon and IPFS technology. It leverages various aspects of the aforementioned technologies to create various communities called districts that cut out the need for 3rd parties and creates a decentralised market place. You can find District0x and other similar Dapps on Stateofthedapps.
I got roped in by the aesthetic appeal of the web page. I found it easy to take in and entertaining in equal measure. The moving images and gifs give you a quick feel of how the platform works but comes at a cost due to loading all the moving icons and slower load time if your internet operates at snail speed.
The internet is littered with market places like Uber, Amazon and other centralised platforms that usually have high 3rd party cost. Take Amazon, for example, who rents selling space at $40 monthly and make a lot more money from from customer data. District0x was borne out of the need to give individuals the freedom to create "districts" that are effectively market places virtually free of charge; all you need is a metamask wallet and a bunch of DNT tokens.
You probably haven't heard about Aragon and that's because they are a relatively new company officially released in February 2017 that empowers users to freely organize and collaborate without borders or intermediaries. This facilitates the flexible and underlying autonomous nature of various districts or communities. Platofrms like Ethlance, Name Bazaar and Meme Factory are communities that leverage this technology.
The Distric0x network token and a Metamask wallet are all you need to access this platform. Just like every other cryptocurrency, you can buy and sell this new token that ranks at an unremarkable 471 position on CoinmarketCap. Moving away from trading, the proof of stake mechanism coupled with a democratic system grants holders of DNT higher political power within District Network. Simply put, the higher your stake, the higher the value of your vote(basically Steem).
edited by yours truly; source
Districts are created in pretty much the same way Proposals are created on the Steem network. Anyone with DNT staked can come up with a proposal and other holders of the DNT coin get to evaluate it and vote accordingly. Votes are weighted based on the amount of DNT staked, you can only vote on one proposal and every transaction is naturally validated by your Metamask or any other ether wallet.
Name Bazaar seems to be happy with what they have so far. On Ethereum Network, giving your wallet a "name" is a big deal and there's something called Ethereum Name Service that facilitates this. Name Bazaar is a marketplace (district) where people buy and sell names. Ethlance on the hand is a freelance site where service providers can meet their end-users, while meme factory is a market place for memes and these are also communities or districts that were built on District0x.
District0x has qualities that are quite similar to the proposed and tested new features of Steemit. Steemit now features communities and the flexible Smart Media Token wizard that enables users to easily create their coin without need for programming skills, while using District0x requires some programming skills.
It is also worth mentioning that while District0x is streamlined to peer to peer market place, Steemits's design is more of a social network.
District Network is yet another fine example of how the use of blockchains and advanced cryptographic technology can be used to simplify and reduce the cost of traditional platforms. One of the selling points which also happens to be a drawback of platforms using a democratic consensus is that decision making is often a drawn-out and ceremonious procedure that bothers on dithering. With that said, I highly recommend giving this platform a chance if you have a project in mind.
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