Introduction
Tomorrow is the preico of the RootProject. It happened to cross my feed and catch my attention. With the token called ROOTS, RootProject aims to solve extreme poverty in our own society. After reading the whitepaper twice and asking some questions on the slack I started to understand it. I did my best to summarize the concept on a single page to my own understanding . The people behind this project are experienced in economics research, industrial design and software engineering. More information about this and their advisory board can be found on their website (https://www.rootproject.co/who). Of course the whitepaper and token distribution information is on there as well.
process mapping cryptocurrency-institutional feedback loops to create explosive growth cycles
RootProject provides a worker platform for the unfortunate living in poverty and a crowdfunding platform for the fortunate. A reward program for the worker platform is proposed as well in which they can stake tokens themselves. The platforms rely on purchasing tokens on the open market and operate in the charity/non-profit sector. The crowdfunding platform employs the worker platform, funded projects improve the local community and contributors enjoy tax deduction.
The whitepaper talks about a cryptocurrency mapped institutional feedback loop. Here are the key points of the whitepaper.
the worker platform
The worker platform has a smart contract based reward system to battle poverty. The paper proposes a pension-fund like program. This proposal is based on the belief personal progress validators (p.p.v.) which have to be met (so the contract releases ROOTS tokens) is an effective way to encourage long-term constructive behaviour. This implies the worker platform is useful for social workers and other institutions dealing with people in poverty. Examples of possible p.p.v.'s could be:
- attend X substance abuse seminars
- work for 10 hours weekly for 4 weeks
The current proposal is a reward program that stakes a 50% bonus of the wage earned by a worker. This bonus is in ROOTS token, locked in a personal smart contract that's bound to this p.p.v. milestone system. These tokens are purchased on the open market and are part of a project's budget.
initiating local non-profit crowdfunding projects
The crowdfunding platform is to starting public crowdfunding projects with non-profit status. This enables a high portion of the contributions to be tax deductable. RootProject will do the implementation of every project so the project will fall under RootProject's tax status. Projects still need to adhere to strict guidelines for donations to be tax deductable. It is not expected for project initiators to do the work themselves or to hire workers. This concept is what RootProject calls the laborless crowdfunding model.It rewards the most succesfull project initiators with tokens and 3-5% of the total distribution is reserved for it. Their success is measured in terms like the percentage of projects that were non-profit and reached their funding treshold.
Service fee's
RootProject will be the governing body over these platforms, connecting the workers to the crowdfunding project and managing other aspects of each project. They come in the picture once a crowdfunding project reaches its minimum treshold of contributions to review the project. This means taking care of things such as budget allocation, legal compliance and quality assurance. At this stage 10% crowdfunding fee is taken from the project's budget. This fee is used to purchase ROOTS on the open market. The contributions are made in regular currency and contributers might not even be aware cryptocurrency is involved. This concept is what RootProject calls currency-as-a-fee.
Reward program for the workers platform
The proposed medium-term 'pension-fund' and the worker platform can be used as a tool for social workers and alike to set up rewarding milestones (p.p.v.) that pull their clients out of poverty and puts them in a Lamborghini purchased with their own ROOTS token work with them and the RootProject towards a constructive future.
Conclusion
So ROOTS is used in different parts of this business model and are purchased on the open market. Every time a project cycles from start to end ROOTS are purchased on the open market. 10% of the total budget is spend as the crowdfunding fee, and 50% of the labor costs are spend and locked in a personalized smart contract. Thus driving up the price price of ROOTS and reducing poverty, as a tax deductable donation to a non-profit crowdfunding project.
The whitepaper is pretty long, I hope to have covered the most important aspects. There's also a one-pager on their website that runs over a few other points, and you can also read the whitepaper yourself if you're interested.