Block-chain reputation, feedback, credit rating system

[Coreforcruxes]

Hi Folks, I would love some feedback and thoughts on this idea, if its even feasible, thanks!


BitMarket ( working name )

v 0.2

 

I prefer not to refer to this as a ‘coin’ as it is in no way a currency since the signals within burn on use, it is (I hope) an entirely new and innovative way to realize one more potential of block-chain technology.

Proposal:

Bitmarket would in simplest terms be a decentralized, trustless, reputation network. The method would be one of elegance, as has been shown effective with bitcoin. Do one thing, and do it right, consistently. Bitcoin is voluntary money, Bitmarket is voluntary identity ( or identities depending on one’s inclination ) of oneself and their associates. Before that scares too many off please allow me to make my case for why this system can and would work and only add to all that we already love about the crypto-space including the option of anonymity.

> Independent Block-chain resting technology relying heavily on timestamps within the block-chain for regulation of certain features.

> The unit within the network is called credits and is populated in every active node on the network on a regular basis.

> Users spend credits to send positive or negative signals to each other in order for the market and individuals to establish reputation, relationships and organizations.

> This technology relies on external ‘credit-agencies’ to emerge in the marketplace and compete for acceptance of their interpretation of what the network transactions mean to and for the market-place. After enough growth and adoption in the BitMarket reliable interpretations of relationships and organizational distinctions with the network would be invaluable.

> Extra credits are awarded to those who process the transactions in the network, this gives those individuals a greater influence in the network. For this reason it is reasonable that the agencies competing to interpret and report the market will also compete to process its transactions as they have the highest incentive to maintain the fidelity of the network.

> New addresses do not become ‘active’ until they have received a certain amount of positive feedback

> If an address reputation falls below a certain percentage that address is ‘deactivated’ permanently unless the deactivation threshold is adjusted by the network in the future

> New Block-chain feature ( maybe.. if its possible ); Block-chain voting,

variables within the block-chain can be adjusted on the fly by its participants by having designated addresses for each variable that receives positive or negative signals.

The way I imagine this working is that the client is about to perform a function that relies on a variable, it then checks the total value at the address on the block-chain that variable relates to and plugs it in based on the total positive or negative number of the value stored in the address. For some variables like the amount of credits awarded to each node, whole numbers ( or thousands of them ) could have drastic effects on the network. For that reason I propose ‘momentum-voting’; with this function the network would start out at its genesis values and increase or decrease those values based on a historic average developed over time. Depending on the variable voted on updates to those variables could occur every x blocks which itself could be a feature voted on. Though it might be pointed out that after a long period of stability at one value it would be difficult to change that value if need be. But as time progresses so too should the size of the network and its capacity to build up momentum in whatever direction it so desired. This way the community could feel empowered to effect this system immediately and relative to the individuals effort and quality of argument to do so without coercion.

  Examples:

•  frequency of credit generation

•  amount of credit generation

•  activation threshold for new address

•  deactivation threshold for bad actors

•  amount of award for transaction processors

•  network processing difficulty ( this might be best left an unalterable value )

• potential feature > good actor bonus > a possibly graduated reward relative to ones relationship diversity and perhaps reputation beyond a certain thresholds like 75% 80% 85% etc…

?’s

I am still not getting it, even if this could be done why would I want it to happen and why participate?

First off, tech like this appeals to the entire marketplace right now, not just people into the cutting edge, the revolutionary or the sound investment. From jr high kids to people buying and selling on craigslist we all understand the value of being liked and appreciated socially. This will allow people to realize extra value for every human interaction they engage with and encourage them to spend their own and others time wisely and with courtesy. This also has a zero paywall to entry, many people do not get into a tech like bitcoin because they to do not have the extra money to do so. This will get people using block-chain technology and becoming familiar with it in a fun, functional and economically productive way.

Let me not gloss over the appeal to younger individuals who will lead the market-place soon enough. People in school are obsessed with social organization and will no doubt love being able to track and analyze relationships on a scale of this nature. And the more people involved the more value the rating agencies can provide the marketplace with data-analyzations of un-coerced human action.

The reason to jump in now is because reputation is more valuable with a longer established history, and now while it is still easy is when you want to establish relationships with others like yourself who have put themselves in the path of the futures momentum.

What about anonymity and real identity?

It is my opinion that we all engage in varying degrees of market activity, whether it be grey, white black, social or economic. With this network one may establish as many nodes as they wish and choose to link them or not. Everyone would have their white market address they attach to their real identity and then if one so chose they could have one or more anonymous addresses for whatever purpose.

Would’nt the credit agencies punish people for anonymous addresses?

actually, there would be competing agencies and after the market got complex enough many agencies would specialize in providing interpretations of different perspectives of the market. Be it White, Black or the lumber industry or gaming or sports. So if you wanted to do business with an anonymous person you might not trust a white market agencies rating that has to pay lip service to common social norms and be weary of reprisal from contemporary power bases.
 

If someone gets negative ratings whats to stop them from creating a new address and starting over?

Nothing, but if someone attached their real identity or had robust enough pattern of behavior and relationships then the blockchain would not “know” that it belonged to the same user but it would be the business of the external rating agencies to know and publish said information allowing a potential trade associate to make the judgement.

If someone operated with an anonymous ID and wanted to be taken seriously they would do their best to only interact with good players and be themselves, fair.

Whats to stop people from spamming addresses and boosting their rating with the credit generated?

Having to have so much positive feedback before an address goes live and starts to generate credits helps stem this right away.

It would also be incumbent on the promoters of this tech to relay to individuals the value and possible permanence of their rating and how the external agencies would likely review past behavior possibly before they existed and attach to it an identity or punish it with negative feedback.

During development a community would grow around this idea with lots of credits and the ability to “regulate” the network before the rating agencies were formed.

when marketing this technology up front, making people very aware of the consequences.

what about Bloat?

Between new addresses needing to be activated, bad actors being deactivated, and external rating agencies having a large incentive and capacity ( due to increased stores of credits from the reward for processing the networks transactions )to punish users who try to game the system, and the fact that once spent credits burn and the incentive to hoard credits ( defense against malicious ratings ) I believe that the network could be kept to a manageable size. And since there are some questions we cannot know the answer to, the voting system allows future users to adjust the growth rate of the network based on what current tech can allow for.

 

[J. D. Stembal]

 

I'm not at all technically acquainted with cryptonetworks, but I've desired something like this for a long time. Goodbye eBay, goodbye Amazon, goodbye Heatware, goodbye Paypal, goodbye credit cards. Then I realized that you could use this for anything from finding a babysitter to betting on horse races from home (and more).

 

My brain just exploded.

 

From listening to Stefan's BTC podcast, I was under the impression that feedback, escrow, and e-commerce features were already built into the BTC architecture or could possibly be bolted on top of it. Would BitMarket be competing directly with BTC (and other major crypto currencies) or working with it? Is this the e-commerce (everywhere commerce) expansion pack that BitCoin sorely needs?

[Coreforcruxes]

Thanks ETU,

I don't know if something like this could single handedly end Ebay, Paypal etc... at least if they adopted its use for their rating systems.
 

"From listening to Stefan's BTC podcast, I was under the impression that feedback, escrow, and e-commerce features were already built into the BTC architecture.."

I am not sure whether it can or cannot, I know it has been updated to add things like Multi-signature wallets and there is alot of talk about implementing something called color-coins which should add alot of benefit and versatility. I have not heard any proposals for a reputation system with BTC.

IMO its probable that the BTC block-chain could be updated with features like this, but we cannot guarantee that it will / can or would be prudent to do so.