Letter #5 to citizens of BWO

Trust, digital borders and skin in the game

Gm citizens,

Let us talk about TRUST.

For social contracts in a digital nation to work effectively, we need to establish rules of quantifying trust. One of those ways is adopting a point-based system that starts off as centralized, but evolves to be decentralized over time. It could also be tokenized, but tokenized in a non-tradeable way where the token can’t be traded on exchanges. That doesn’t prevent a citizen from transferring it peer-to-peer.

This brings forth an interesting question- Would you want to sell the reputation you’ve gained in a particular country?

Since this reputation confers status, it might be enticing to buy it off someone, which means there will be a demand for such an asset, there will remain an off-market price and where there is demand, there will exist supply.

As this system evolves, we’ll decide if and when we’ll release a tokenized version of it and distribute it to our citizen’s wallets, but for now, this will just be used for book-keeping and the leaderboard. It’ll show us who is committed to the nation and who is putting their time in and building friendships along the way.

TRUST thus, will be the only way to judge everyone in the nation as they build it. The nation dashboard will be a direct leaderboard that reflects this and those at the top will be prioritized for special opportunities and privileges, that the bottom few won’t get conferred.

There will be different tasks that confer TRUST. With each new letter, I’ll announce the relevant tasks that can be done together and how much TRUST that will build. I’ll also let citizens suggest tasks, and over time, it’ll only be citizens cumulatively deciding what taks to do together.

Like always, these are all experiments in the grand scheme of things, and to build social contracts- such a leaderboard is essential to know who is committed and who is not.

Borders.

A nation needs to have borders, to make sure we don’t end up with participants that are just there for financial profit or status signalling. To that end, BWO will erect borders on the discord citizen node, which will function as the primary node of the population till a convenient decentralized alternative exists.

It’s easy to create a forum that matches your wallet, looks for a BWO Duck and signs you in, but that would neither be convenient nor would be used currently. Utilizing a grape protocol gate or similar, which works for most NFT communities, is also not ideal for us as a country, since holding an NFT just confers citizenship, but participating within requires active and conscious effort to build relationships is not reflected by such a wallet gate.

So, to make sure we don’t incentivize passive HODLing, at least right now when our population hasn’t scaled, we need to ensure we prioritize citizens based on their quality and commitment, rather than those who minted a duck.

This also means that soon, not everyone who minted a BWO Duck will be able to cross the border and verify themselves, unless they’re explicitly referred by a verified Lord or Lady.

Skin in the Game -

All of these efforts are a way to build our community from the roots, without attracting too much attention from the crowd. When I started BWO, I had believed a $50 citizen mint would be enough to build skin in the game, but that is not enough, which I have learnt.

These are simple lessons, but I’m sure I’ll be learning a lot more of these as time goes on. I’m thankful for those of you still here, and I hope you continue along with me on this journey. With these systems in place, I’ll be minting out and sponsoring citizenships to like-minded individuals over the next few months. Soon, we’ll have a thriving population that doesn’t require monitoring, or conscious monitoring by me.

The decisions I’ll take might not be the best ones, and some of them might definitely feel like bad decisions in hindsight, but that’s a price we’ll all pay for trying to do something revolutionary.

Onward, and forward.

Quackamen.

PS. If you’re reading and still haven’t verified yourself, now’s the time to do that. As our population continues to increase, we’ll have a higher standard for citizenship, but right now, I’ll prioritize those who believed in the nation early and joined in. Don’t miss out!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great weekend ahead!