I guess with a title like that I have a lot of explaining to do!
Many of you already know me well as "abarefootpoet" or "ethadvisor".
Steemit is where I began my journey in Cryptocurrency and Blockchain. I truly love this community.
In May of this year (2018) I took a position as Marketing Lead at a very exciting project called Utrum.
And now I want to introduce you all to this project.
So let me share a little about what we are doing at Utrum and how we are bringing trust to crypto-investing through decentralized, curated reviews...and rewarding our users for quality participation.
What makes investing in cryptocurrency a fun, fulfilling and even thrilling experience is having clear guidance and the knowledge to stay safe while “playing”.The hope of gains, the thrill of early adoption of an emerging technology, the rush of the speculation and gamble, the “game” of playing the opportunity are all enjoyed best in a trusted space.Being “taken” by a scam or falling for incorrect, misleading, or simply bad information or advice, on the other hand, turns the “dream” into a nightmare.Newbies to investing and professional investors alike have been taken by clever schemes and scams which appeared to be completely legitimate. And perhaps more commonly, well-meaning folks have fallen for misinformation, which unbeknownst to them was only designed for generating a profit by it’s author, with no concern as to its accuracy.Because crypto-investing is both unregulated and an emerging, very technical industry, this problem is not going away and there are communities developing solutions.We at Utrum are one such community.Crypto-investing already comes “pre-loaded” with many inherit risks. But these risks are not nearly as petrifying as the risks associated with screwing up a transaction, losing your wallet, sending your funds to the wrong wallet, getting shilled information, or falling for a scam.All of these are avoidable risks, with the right knowledge. It boils down to accurate, and curated information to solve this problem…but to achieve this there has to be trust mechanisms put in place.And luckily, blockchain is the ideal technology to accomplish trust and transparency in a “trustless” environment.
The Relationship Between Risk and Knowledge
Many risks in crypto investing are ignorance related, such as handling a wallet, understanding what tokens can be sent where and how, etc. These risks are easily overcome with readily available, well curated and known information and tutorials.Getting provably accurate and quality information on a crypto-related investment, project, team, token, asset or other however, is completely different. Knowledge in avoiding being scammed is even trickier.And with so many conflicting messages and an ever increasing chaos pitch in the industry, it’s becoming more difficult to identify quality or accuracy, or to differentiate a scam from winning a proposition.Not to mention the nature of disorganization in any info out there now, people joining Facebook groups, Slack, Telegram “signal” channels…jumping around and trying desperately to piece together some semblance of clarity.This sort of chaos and confusion, along with the greed-driven review sites getting paid to write biased reviews who could care less about accuracy, legitimacy or quality…paired with the rampant scams…it’s a mess!When founder Sridhar dreamed up Utrum he came from a security background and, as a crypto investor himself, understanding both industries intimately he was able to see immediately how blockchain solves the problem when leveraged correctly.Utrum, like most projects, has created a whitepaper to explain how we are solving these trust issues in crypto investing. But white papers aren’t exactly easy to read or understand, so we decided to explain Utrum in plain english.
Utrum’s LitePaper — Understanding Exactly HOW Utrum Works
In a phrase, Utrum is a decentralized platform which provides a network of content, feedback, metrics, analyses, and community between members.The decentralized platform has five primary mechanisms to it:
- It implements rewards for user participation, similar to Steemit
- It is a curated reviews platform, similar to Glassdoor
- It has a marketplace, similar to Fiverr
- It includes market predictions, similar to Trading View
- It implements team and company database, similar to Crunchbase
All of this targeted specifically to Crypto of course. As you can see, Utrum is overall a Curated Reviews & Knowledge platform.As such, crypto-investments are reviewed and rated, market predictions are analyzed or accessed…dissimilar however to centralized platforms in that Utrum combines rewards and curation in a way which promotes quality and accuracy.To whittle it down, Utrum provides Ai-supported Rewarded Quality Curating by Members in a mechanism we call “Crowd Wisdom.”
How Does “Crowd Wisdom” Work?
Crowd Wisdom is essentially another term to describe curating.The result of curating in a platform such as Utrum, where it’s all about reviews and analyses of potential investment opportunities, is wisdom. This philosophy of crowd wisdom subjects all information submitted to the platform, such as a review of a crypto-investment, to a “trial by jury” mechanism…the collective community voting on the content.This voting process is “blind” and members have no social influence, voting purely on conscience. To mitigate manipulation or outside influence, Artificial Intelligence (Ai) is integrated in the voting process with the support of community Trustees, who act as moderators in the ecosystem.The result is content which is curated by the community with results being analyzed by the Ai to detect fraud as well as the Trustees to help “teach” the learning machine.In the example of a review being published, the review gains validity and visibility based on the curated results by the community.In this process members are rewarded in OOT tokens for their participation, while gaining a reputation which will play to the quality and validity of their work.
The Basic Process
To understand this better, let’s look at the flow of events.Utrum as a platform is designed with several types of content, not just reviews. Predictions, analyses, and even a marketplace are crucial features of Utrum.What Utrum is NOT is a content producer. It’s simply a platform for members to use, publish various crypto-investment and related content, curate the content, and interact with each other and projects, teams, etc in the ecosystem.Utrum Platform is designed to support any crypto-related product, service, etc…for example ICOs, Products, Assets, Services, Currency/Coin, Reviews, etc can be rated and voted upon (curated) in the Platform.Each type of crypto-related matter has a categorical voting period associated with it. Reviews have a 72 hour voting period, analyses have a 48 hour voting period, and predictions have a 24 hour voting period.
A Walk-through of Utrum Post-to-Publish
So let’s walk through the process from start to finish with the example of a Crypto-investment Review as the content being published and curated.1 — Member Publishes a Review
Here’s where it all begins, a member posts a review to the community and the content enters a 72 hour blindfold voting period.2 — Voting = Curating
Members are able to vote on the review during this period without knowing what others are voting. This encourages unbiased votes, improving the overall quality of the curating process. Voting is time limited and results are counted only after the process is completed.3 — Ai + Trustees
After voting has ended, the Ai system analyzes the results, using complex algorithms to identify fraud, manipulation, and other attempts at skewing the results. Any fraudulent data is discarded and the results are published. Trustees help in the process of the Ai learning various behaviors and patterns, to better identify fraud vs legitimate results.4 — OOT Token Rewards Paid to Participants
15 days after results are published and content is curated, participants are paid in OOT tokens as a reward for playing! The post author is paid 70% of total payout for the post while voters are paid 30%.The end result is a published, curated review of a crypto-related investment, product, service or asset. Quality is determined and measured by the “crowd” and members coming for guidance and knowledge are presented with unbiased data.
Trust in Crypto
One of the key components in Utrum is the Trust Factor Algorithm. Cryptos, ICOs, Reviews, Posts, etc are all given a Trust Factor Score. In addition, reviewers, experts, analysts, etc are all given a Trust Factor Score based on a calculation method which implements quantity and quality of their content and participation.Trust is core to Utrum, both in concept and in practice within the software and algorithms driving the system. Because Utrum presents a rewards incentive to users for participating, it’s crucial to also implement trust mechanisms in tandem, which promote quality and accuracy.
Trust in Content
When it comes to content, trust is established during the voting process in which users are motivated to vote on conscience over influence. Voting is performed in a time-limited, blind process, after which every vote is counted and analyzed within the system.Voters are also rated during this process. Votes and patterns of votes are carefully analyzed, generating a Trust Factor Score for the content when voting has finished.
Trust in Members
Whenever a member creates a post, a review, prediction, or other type of analysis, their contribution is evaluated through a rating process. After the voting has completed for their content and the Trust Factor Score assigned, the member also receives a Trust Factor Score.As the member’s TFS improves they are able to become an Expert. Ultimately, a member’s accuracy in evaluating reviews, content, projects, etc all contribute to developing their Trust Factor Score and for all intents and purposes, their reputation in the community.The more accurate a member is…the higher quality content they contribute…the more trust they develop in the community…the higher their TFS and their “provable” trust within the system.In this way Utrum builds trust in crypto-related reviews, analytics, predictions, content and experts.
Trust through Governance
Utrum also implements a governance model of 12 community-elected Trustees. As the community grows an election will be held every 6 months for new trustees to be added to the Platform.Trustees act as moderators of sorts, providing oversight in strategic decisions, voting processes, and ultimately assisting in the learning process of the Ai.
Fun and SAFE!
Utrum is a serious project, with serious algorithms, complex Ai, and a serious passion for safety and security within Crypto-investing. And all this “seriousness” is for the purpose of solving trust problems in crypto, providing a safe platform for clear knowledge, where investors and newbies can simply ENJOY investing!If you would like to learn more and participate in our project, we invite you to visit our official website at https://utrum.ioYou may also enjoy participating in our Telegram!
Utrum dICO Crowdsale is Live
As a final note, for those interested in supporting our project, our Public Crowdsale is live until June 20, 2018.Our project is utilizing a transparent crowdfunding model, where participants can invest in us in a wallet-to-wallet trade…meaning you simply buy OOT tokens in a direct trade with us and can be a part of supporting our project and helping us build this trusted ecosystem.To join our Crowdsale now, simply head over to https://utrum.io/tokensale and watch our super simple walk-through video on how to play.