Crypto Sapiens - On-Chain Reputation | Orange Protocol - Erick Pinos, Business Development Lead
Primer: Erick Pinos’ interest in decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials (VCs) started when MIT enabled students to have their diplomas signed on the Bitcoin blockchain. This led him down the rabbit hole to Ontology and, subsequently, Orange Protocol. Find out how DIDs and VCs are used today in Web3 in this episode of Crypto Sapiens.
Background
From MIT
Started the MIT Bitcoin Club for people to get together and talk about Bitcoin
When Ethereum came out, he became more interested as it was programmable
After graduating, he worked for an investment firm for a while before joining Ontology, which does decentralized identity
Running the Blockchain Education Network, a global non-profit that educates high school and university students about blockchains
He now works with Orange Protocol
MIT Bitcoin Club
Became president of the club
Wanted something that will help him to stand out so that he can apply for blockchain-based jobs later
The community grew a lot during the 2017 bull
Started the Blockchain Education Network in 2014. Got to network with other presidents from other schools
Ontology
How He Found Out About Ontology
When someone graduates from MIT, they can have their diploma signed on the Bitcoin blockchain
He opted into it
Got him interested in decentralized identity and verifiable credentials
Found out about Ontology and got interested in it
Ontology focused on enterprise use cases (e.g. supply chain, healthcare, medical records, etc.)
Learned that those use cases are still valid, just that enterprises are very slow to adoption
Enterprises prefer half-blockchains/permissioned ledgers
Challenges Involved In Creating Products Around Decentralized Identity
Challenges are always the last-mile problem
E.g. Someone has to put in the serial number of physical products on-chain
What Impedes Blockchain Adoption?
A lot of enterprises have already adopted blockchain
However, it’s challenging to use them (e.g. MetaMask, private key, etc.)
The UI has to be improved or else people will revert back to custodians
“I have friends that work at MetaMask. And they say the worst job in the world is to work in MetaMask support because people call them all the time demanding their money back. And it's like, we don't have it, you know.”
- Erick Pinos
Orange Protocol
A decentralized reputation protocol
People can create models or plugin data sources to design their own reputation system for their community
Users can use both on-chain and off-chain data sources
In DAOs, people want to recognize/prove someone’s unique
Have done a couple of campaigns where the reputation model is based off:
Social contributions to a particular DAO
Donations to Web3 space
How active you are in voting
Users earn badges to build up their contributor history
Have projects that are interested in using those badges for token-gating communities and reputation-weighted voting
What Can Projects Do After A Campaign?
Currently doing a campaign with TalentDAO
TalentDAO is a decentralized science community of academics, researchers, etc.
Created models/badges with 3 key contribution areas:
Discord activity
Voting on Snapshot and forum activity
Donor activity (i.e. how often you donate)
Want to do more campaigns and to make the models more complex
Have a collaboration with CollabLand to integrate badges for token gating
Creating A More Robust Ecosystem
Need robust tools for the whole system to work
Still need some kind of financialization for DAOs to generate revenue and pay contributors
The system is continuously evolving
The current stewardship model ends up being popularity contests where the biggest social media presence is able to garner the most votes
Need to have tangible ways of recognizing contributions besides capital, voice, or influence
His Vision For The Future
Need a strong Web3 backbone where people can contribute to the Metaverse
Is seeing the technologies being adopted more
It will be led by new companies/projects
The current incumbents are announcing Metaverse initiatives, but they are not really adopting them
Excited to see new business models that arise and the interactions that take place in the Metaverse
Someone Who Influenced His Crypto Journey
Robert Leshner of Compound Finance
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