The release of the Bitcoin white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, gave rise to a new technology(Blockchain), and initiated a movement towards greater decentralization.
Bitcoin started off within a niche community of cryptographers and computer scientists, but gradually expanded across the globe to individuals from all walks of life. The beauty of decentralization is the inclusiveness that the community offers to everyone, where anyone who believes in the project is welcome to be part of it, through hodling(misspelling for hold) the token and/or contributing to the project in other ways.
The current environment within the blockchain space involves various stakeholders:
- Core developers who believe in the project and dedicate time and resources to improve the project.
- Entrepreneurs who identifies a problem or an opportunity to provide a service in the sector and sets out to build a company to provide for it.
- Researchers, Evangelists who were intrigued by the project and chose to dedicate their time in researching / advocating the project.
- Hodlers of project tokens were drawn to the project from an ideological perspective, and/or the potential increase in value of the project tokens.
- Speculators, who got involved in a project for the short-term with the main aim of making monetary profit from it.
Decentralization brings about inclusiveness, thus with different stakeholders comes different underlying motivation for the project which at times may differ slightly. That’s what makes every community unique. However, decentralization also brings about less clarity on the objective of the project as its being muffled by different narratives, well intended efforts by community members may yield lesser impact than expected due to loosely coordinated efforts or limited knowledge of the projects. In the current climate, hodlers makes up the largest portion of most blockchain projects, while also most hodlers possess the least knowledge about the project that they are a stakeholder in.
Freehold solves for the above limitations, while maintaining decentralization and inclusiveness. It unlocks the intrinsic value of hodlers, which forms that greatest part of a blockchain community.
Freehold allows prospective hodlers to contribute to the community in exchange for an economic stake in the project, and in the process gain greater knowledge about the technology.
Current setup of blockchain community
Freehold empowers hodlers
Through clearly defined tasks that’s aligned with the project, users sets out to complete them which adds value to the community in an organized manner for maximum results. In exchange, hodlers gets an economic stake of the project, and are required to hodl(hold) on to it to continue participating in the growth of the project with skin in the game. Hodlers at any time are free to liquidate their economic stake and exit the community.
The rise of new technology(blockchain) brings about new business models to leverage on new innovation and bring stakeholders closer together with more value aligned initiatives. Freehold empowers hodlers to make an impact in the project that choose to be involved in, where hodlers are free to contribute as little or as much to the community they care about.
Historically, value accrues to equity holders of companies and access to a company’s equity is limited through various reasons, thus creating inequality within the communities. E.g. Users of Facebook contributes content, shared personal data and lifestyle behaviour to the Facebook platform which makes the platform valuable. However this value was accrued to shareholders of Facebook and not the community who played a significant role in making Facebook valuable in the first place.
Freehold changes this and allows anyone who wants to be part of the community to be involved and contribute to the growth of the project with skin in the game.
With Freehold, it gives hodlers a safe space to learn about the project, exchange ideas with fellow hodlers and with a greater clarity on what they can do to contribute meaningfully to the project.
To newcomers whom would like to learn more about Bitcoin and Blockstacks, Freehold provides a safe and risk-free space for newcomers to learn about the project and gain an economic stake to the project by completing tasks. Head over to Freehold to join the movement!
