The team at Dirt Protocol is using blockchain technology to create a new approach to verify information and contribute more to the growing blockchain technology
The startup doesn’t plan to launch its platform until later this year, but it announced that it has raised $3 million in seed funding from various firms. Dirt Protocol isn’t trying to create a single, definitive data repository, but rather to provide the tools for developers to build their own databases.
Cryptocurrency currency
Founder of the company previously created lockscreen startup Echo which was later acquired by Microsoft and laundry startup Prim. Company official stated that after becoming interested in the cryptocurrency industry, founder was concerned about the fear, uncertainty and doubt around coin offerings — after all, we’ve covered several ICOs where companies appear to have disappeared with people’s money.
The market today is still unregulated, with high incentive for people to spread misinformation for personal gain. So the founder’s solution to this is build databases where anyone can contribute information, but where they have skin in the game so there’s a financial penalty if they’re not truthful.
Tools for developers
Dirt Protocol isn’t trying to create a single, definitive data repository, but rather to provide the tools for developers to build their own databases. Those databases might focus on things like ICOs (providing information like the team, the investors and the number of tokens in circulation), or online publishers (to help advertisers avoid bots), or professional listings and membership lists.
There will be a single token that works across the Dirt platform. Users will need to stake tokens to add new information to databases, to challenge an entry or to vote in disputes — you’ll be penalized (by losing tokens) for adding misinformation and rewarded for weeding it out. Dirt will support a variety of different governance structures, whether that’s centralized moderation, free-for-all voting or a system where votes are weighted by reputation.
The business model will probably involve some combination of giving the software away for free and charging for additional services. The company is focused on creating this open data set that anyone can use. If firm achieves that goal, then some monetization may arise.
Good