Kleros incubator - early feedback

General
#1

Kleros incubator applications are open: https://kleros.io/incubator

Next cohort starts on January 9 next year. You can send your application - from Telegram message

Here is 5 minutes pitch

Slides on Google Docs

Key concept: Triple bottom line

One problem with the triple bottom line is that the three separate accounts cannot easily be added up.

Problems = challenges = opportunities

Independent assessments evaluated by the Kleros jurors - that can actually work…

Challenges

Explaining the project in 2 sentences. I struggle with the elevator pitch, here is why:

  • Climate change - big problem
  • Economic system - big problem
  • Accounting for externalities - big problem
  • Kleros game theory incentives and independent jurors - not easy to explain, unless you already know

Why Kleros?

Community of jurors with practical experience :100::100::100:

Independent assessments are the core of BaseX.

Jurors have experience evaluating evidence. They can also evaluate environmental reports. BaseX should be able to offer them loads of work.

Why incubator?

From 0 to 1.

From an idea and proof-of-concept into a working product.

Call to action, looking for help:

  • early feedback (in case I need to update the application)
  • seeking co-founder(s)
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#2

Thank you Emmett for asking:

Do you have a go-to-market strategy in mind for the 2 TCRs you’re proposing in this idea? So you’d have 1 registry for the reports and 1 registry for evaluations correct? How would this data be consumed and what would be the practical use of a DAO in this context? Also, what kind of utility would the token have?

Some really good questions here :point_up_2::point_up_2::point_up_2:

Go-to-market

Go-to-market strategy involves branching out to “normies”, not just crypto geeks. As of 2022 everyone is aware of climate change. I’m positioning this project as a way to evaluate existing environmental reports of Fortune 500.

Curate

The exact structure of curated registries of reports / evaluations / companies - I was thinking about creating a proxy (wrapper) contract that would put additional data on chain, rather than IPFS so it is easier to access by other contracts.

(technical debate, technical discussion, using existing battle-tested contracts but with a customization)

(next couple of days I will focus on technical feasability of it)

(comment from Clement about using curate was greatly insightful and I’m going to try this way)

DAO

DAO because currently it is just me, no team. I genuinely believe that there can be a sub-DAO for different areas of the project as well as independent contributions. At the same stepping up to the leadership and responsibility.

Token

Token that receives fees generated by the platform, something like xSUSHI. There will be also “negative value” and “positive value” tokens issued to the companies whose reports are evaluated.

For example:

  • Exxon created 100k negative value (NV) from air pollution.
  • Extinction Rebellion created 50k positive value (PV) from protecting forest.

I’m realistic - initially, noone from Exxon will buy PV to compensate for NV.

But… I see the way how PV can have value

Conscious and eco friendly businesses can offer a 10% discount. 90% regular cash payments and 10% accepting PV tokens. That’s waaaaaaay more realistic. Some businesses genuinely want to position themselves as green / conscious / woke.

If the system grows, if it gains traction, if there are users, community, media attention, and publicity - then those who received NV tokens may decide that for branding and reputational purposes they should acquire PV tokens to compensate.

So-called “loss and damage” is becoming a reality…

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One of the question on the form - https://kleros.io/incubator/ - was total addressable market - I provided some estimates that 50x by 2050.

Bullish on climate change and adaptation.

Thinking big

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This was Hal Finney predicting price of BTC one week after the genesis block: https://twitter.com/DrBitcoinMD/status/1165004233663496197

I have a high conviction on BaseX. At the same time I’m aware of Confirmation bias - Wikipedia

I’m not easily offended, I’m proactively seeking constructive criticism.

#3

I wonder if your proposition would help solve the mess that is the carbon offsets market.

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#4

It is a mess of epic proportions, almost like SBF and FTX.

Some of my notes about the subject: wiki.basex.com - I really wish there was more standardization.

See the example below:

1 tonne of Carbon

Currently trading on chain for $1.23

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1 tonne of Carbon

Direct Air Capture cost around $600

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There is a 500x price difference between $1.23 and $600 :exploding_head:

Main point: standarization.

How does it relate to BaseX and Kleros?

  • New definition of value.
  • Triple bottom line.
  • Accounting for externalities (both positive and negative)
  • Kleros jurors verifying evaluations

These guys just raised another $50m: BeZero Carbon - Global Carbon Ratings (I mentioned them in the application as competitors)

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(Kleros jurors can do equally good - if not better - job than some opaque company)

  • Climate change - massive opportunity
  • Carbon markets - massive opportunity

Slide from the pitch deck:

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BaseX wouldn’t be possible 5 years ago. Timing is main reason why startups succeed:

Now we have so many exponential technologies converging, for example: https://planet.com/ - daily pictures from the sattelite that make verification of work done on the ground much easier.

This is a rabbit hole…

…I’m passionate about climate change and could talk forever about it. Check the 3 parts podcast with my friend explaining my thoughts in more details:

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#5

I have some self-doubt… (100% honesty here)

Am I able to pull it off?

I cannot do everything on my own…

Seeking founding DAO members

:bulb::bulb::bulb:

This idea can work.

The timing is incredible.

There is an infinite amount of climate adaptation funding availble.

In terms of climate adaptation the value will be accrued for generations to come, that’s why need to come out with a new accounting framework.

The definition of value is always subjective, so are the jurors skilled in evaluating the data and evidence.

Even thought I do not have a DAO co-founding members, participating in the incubator would be like putting this project on the map…

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#6

From Twitter algorithm, popped in my feed: https://www.esgdao.earth/

From ETH Denver: https://youtu.be/G_wfN7DvdVU?t=696

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Paying experts is so 2022.

I’d much rather pay the regular people crowdsourcing the data + jurors fact checking and verifying + experts getting their share as well :slight_smile:

EDIT: removing some fluff.

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#7

Great idea. How to solve the data storage problems? Currently, all decentralized storage are not stable enough for business usage. Centralized ones have integrity issues.

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#8

From my perspective, storage is not the problem I’m worried about. IPFS seems pretty robust.

An alternative: ArweaveTeam (partnership with Meta)

An alternative: Filecoin

An alternative: at least a dozen of other decentralised crypto storage projects

Some more questions coming from various channels…

1. Who will be submitting the reports?

Reports can come from any source, permissionless:

  • company itself
  • whistleblower
  • press
  • investigative journalist
  • regulatory watchdog
  • parlamentary comission
  • community of anon dudes from Twitter
  • …

When submitting a report to the curated registry, jurors need to fact-check if it is for real, not a fake news.

Jurors are great at fact-checking and finding errors - this is unleashing power of Kleros and the community.

2. New Google Doc just dropped

NEW technical explanation: BaseX technical explanation - Google Docs (technical details, actual implementation)

EXISTING slides for context: BaseX - pitchdeck - Google Slides (high-level, generic, describing problem space, explaining why this area is important to tackle)

3. Cofounder (continued)

Currently I’m a solo founder but Kleros Incubator is like “seal of approval” that will make it easier to find the right people + https://www.esgdao.earth/ super highly aligned and I’m working towards partnership with them.

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#9

Found a project doing exactly the same: hypercerts.org

Small differences on the edges, working together to integrate the best approach. Discussion on GitHub:

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Telegram conversation:

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Failing forward :muscle:

I did not succeed in launching this idea, never went beyond a prototype / proof of concept.

Finding someone who is doing almost exactly the same thing gives me energy and hope - we can work together and I can meaningfully improve hypercerts.org

Philosophical comment

Great minds think alike.

South Pole was reached by Amundsen and Scott in the same year because Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration was a meme at the time.

As of 2020-ish, everyone talks about climate change and economic incentives that caused it over time.

Measuring other dimensions of value is one of the obvious solutions.

Hypercerts have more shiny product, I (because of longevity with Kleros) have better understanding of game theory incentives, jurors, fact-checking and everything in between to evaluate impact in a scalable way.

handshake_1f91d

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#10

we can…

BUT

hypercerts.org prefers to remain independent, keeping evaluation outside of the core protocol, relying on the ecosystem of evaluators.

Failing forward, forward… Changing your strategy in the light of the new circumstances is how busineness pivot and eventually succeed.

Here is the latest application…

Feedback / comments / questions as always appriated :pray:

Co-founder included

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