Sometimes it's better for a startup to have a rocky start, learn some lessons very fast, and then recover and soar. As opposed to start flamboyantly and then just crash down hard. In business partnerships, this is known as "having all our fights first" - all disagreements are laid down from the beginning, and, after a few very open fights, partners can actually start to work together, since they don't have anything left to fight over.
I was thinking about this approach while I was testing HyperSpace, formerly know as Synereo. If you don't remember, Synereo was one of the most popular "upcoming social media apps powered by the blockchain" projects a couple of years ago. Like many other projects in this space, it lost the start, and it was soon swamped by legal problems and misunderstandings between founders. Other projects, like Steemit, took over and hardly anyone was remembering about Synereo and their token, AMP, anymore.
And yet, after about two years. Synereo resurfaced, with a new name, HyperSpace, but with the same token and - as far as I can tell - with the same whitepaper and social media approach. I've been testing this extensively for the last two weeks, which means I've been accepted in their alpha program as a tester. You can join the white list by clicking on the link above (non-affiliate link).
Here's what I found out:
1. Rewards Algorithm
The token inflation is redistributed to content providers in a different way. There is a daily, fixed allocation of tokens, dubbed UBI - Universal Basic Income, obviously - which everybody active on the platform gets (with a caveat, see below). Those tokens received as UBI can then be used to amplify (upvote) a post, a process in which you actually spend them, you give them away to the post author. There is another source of AMPs, which is allocated to the group creators (in HyperSpace, you are creating "spaces" or groups for specific types of content). And there is also a part of the AMPs which gets redistributed to the amplifiers of a post. The actual reward algorithm is more complicated, the reason I'm not insisting on it is because I believe the algorithm is going to be tweaked even more after the beta version will be launched (announced for next month).
I find this algorithm interesting for the following reasons:
- it flattens the differences between whales, dolphins and minnows, allowing everyone a clean start. Of course, if your content is really good, you can get a lot of AMPs, hence you may become what we call a "whale", but your impact on the reward pool is not going to be like in Steemit, where you can control a bigger part of tokens not yet minted. In HyperSpace, when you are rewarding somebody, you are doing it from your own wallet
- it forces interaction and that's the caveat that I was talking about: you can't have more than 3 days worth of UBI in your wallet. If you have more than that, you will stop getting UBI. Which means you will continuously have to amplify other writers, generating a flow of interaction that, so far, looks very healthy
- it supports verticals, because it's already equipped with groups (something that Steemit, 2 years after the launch, can't put together in a reasonable way). Groups are increasing content affinity, they are generating more consistent traffic and are creating better interactions.
2. User Interface
The current version, alpha, is surprisingly well polished for an alpha. There aren't really many features, but what it's displayed, it basically works as expected. The posts, feeds and groups display are very clean and the overall feeling is pleasant. I look forward to see what will happen in beta.
3. Token Availability
AMPs you get on the platform are not immediately available, you have to wait 45 days in order to use them (and that's only for the tokens you get from your post, UBI tokens cannot become active, they have to be spent, and they become active only in the wallets of other people, so to speak). This window of availability is almost 7 times longer than the one in Steemit, for instance, which is 7 days. I didn't reach the 45 days threshold yet, so I can't tell you how it is to have some AMPs for sale, but I find this mechanism interesting. It allows for a much bigger window of action in case of market fluctuation (dumps are less likely).
4. Token Platform
Seems that AMP is a token built on the Omni protocol, which actually uses the Bitcoin ledger (please correct me if I'm wrong). The part that I don't really like about this is that Omni is a cumbersome and confusing thing, even for people familiar with crypto (I dare to call myself a person familiar with crypto). I don't know yet if the token will remain on this blockchain, but given the abundance of platforms available now, it will be really nice to have something more comfortable (and flexible).
Conclusions
Like I said in the introduction, each projects has its own trajectory and speed. Steem started in a really spectacular way and it had a lot of momentum for almost two years, but during the last few months seems it has been freezing. I'm saying this as a person who is actively and continuously supporting the platform for more than 2 years, and currently subsidizing for my witness and backup node. On the other side, Synereo / HyperSpace seems to just warm up now and they are building on top of the lessons learned from previous projects.
All in all, HyperSpace seems to be on the right path for now. Will get back after I'll have enough time to study the beta version too.
Oh, and if you happen to get accepted on the waitlist, please join my Digital Nomads group there.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me 
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