Dear reader,
I'm sitting here right now imagining who you are. To be more specific, I'm wondering whether or not I've tipped you any crypto recently.
You see, while distributing tips on Noise.cash recently, a fleeting thought crossed my mind: I was in the process of "engagement farming". Fast forward to my next engagement harvest and there I was again, paralysed by a thought. It struck me like a lightning bolt. I had a moment of clarity that cleared the skies and connected me to the likes of the great Hal Finney. Satoshi himself felt within grasp as I centred my focus and plucked at that thought. Then it revealed itself: I was mining second hand coins.
Mining second hand coins?! That sounds absurd.
Follow me on this one, we're going down the rabbit hole.
The wordsmith's protocol
As writers, we are constantly expending effort as we strive to produce our work: our words. In one way or another, we aspire to be rewarded, whether that be through money, fame, acceptance or plain old peace of mind. Well it just so happens that as we spend our time and energy on adding words together, some of us are rewarded on platforms such as Read.cash with old satoshis, or second hand coins if you will.
Similar to how cryptocurrency miners are rewarded with freshly mined coins for verifying transactions and adding blocks to the ledger, crypto writers are rewarded with second hand coins for engaging with other writers and adding their literature to the social ledger of blogposts. This activity can effectively be considered as proof of word, a multi-platform writing consensus protocol.
Let's take a closer look at some of the challenges that proof of word looks to overcome:
Double spend
Can't an author simply copy a previously posted article? In theory yes, but plagiarism is not taken lightly in a proof of word ecosystem. Copycats eventually get weeded out either by community members or by efficient algorithms. They soon come to learn that time spent copying and not being rewarded is not equal to time well spent. As you know, dear reader, time is money, so a plagiarist's unfruitful expenditure of time will eventually lead to the realisation that their time is best spent elsewhere. The famed double spend is therefore not impossible to avoid, but scammers and spammers soon find out that it's a worthless use of their most valuable resource: their time.
Difficulty adjustment
The more competitive the space, the harder you as a writer must work in order to stick out amongst the crowd. Just as early miners of cryptocurrencies gave up the game as the necessary hardware became too expensive to purchase and maintain, so too will lazy wordsmiths fall off track when the competition raises the bar for the quality of content. The difficulty adjustment in this protocol is an adaptive mechanism that is correlated organically to the popularity of the platform. Just as cryptocurrency miners pool their efforts together, writers too can benefit from leaning into dedicated niches. Hive is a good example of this, where like minded creators can congregate, curate and reward each other in content specific communities.
Sharding
As proof of word node operators (authors), we must be cognisant of the fact that real world bills still need to be paid with real word money. It's not every provider that will gladly take those constantly rebasing AMPL tokens as payment for services provided. It can also be quite inconvenient to invite capital gains taxes into our personal finances by off-ramping our second hand satoshis every time an invoice arrives. Therefore we must adapt our habits, for the time being at least, and operate in a parallel-hybrid manner. Proof of word allows for this as the work can be carried out on both traditional and cryptographic wordsmithing platforms; an author's original, copyrighted content is effectively sharded off onto multiple platforms. Platforms such as Medium can offer the writer a chance to mine fiat in exchange for their writing, which in turn allows them to keep their crypto on-chain. Such centralised platforms however often come with a risk of censorship.
Censorship resistance
Second hand coins, whether fiat in the case of Medium, or crypto in the case of Publish0x, are offered by both centralised and decentralised platforms. The centralised versions may offer many benefits to the author but usually come hand in hand with the risk of censorship. For the writers out there who place a high value on the evergreen existence of their content, a decentralised, blockchain based platform such as Hive could be the way to go.
What am I mining?
I started my JaseDMF blogging account on Publish0x in April this year and have since branched out to several other writing platforms, such as Hive, Read.cash, Noise.cash, Mirror.xyz and Medium. My proof of word portfolio currently consists of $BCH, $HIVE, $HBD, $AMPL and $STA, although the $STA tokens will most likely be converted into $ETH due to the upcoming changes on the Publish0x platform. In theory I should also be eligible to mine some fiat at Medium once I surpass 100 followers.
Besides these platforms, I'm constantly on the lookout for other interesting mining opportunities, as long as they offer authors the opportunity to post without exclusivity clauses. Another approach I'm considering is to dive deeper into NFT technology to see what opportunities are out there for both writers and readers. If done correctly, I believe NFTs can provide authors and their readers a symbiotic relationship where both parties are rewarded for their time. What, how, where and when; who knows?
If you're a participant in the proof of word protocol and want to pool together then get in touch at any of the platforms I mentioned (see links in the footer). Also, let me know if you've come across any other interesting writing platforms that are worth looking into, I'd be more than happy to come take a look.
Talk to you next time,
JaseDMF
Resources:
- Cover image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/wood-art-dirty-industry-8580492/
- Rabbit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-rabbit-on-field-247373/
Original content, copyright © Jase DMF 2022. First published on read.cash
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