devhaikya.eth

gmerc everyone!! based on all the inputs/suggestion here are some next action items i am thinking: 1. Enable refund for everyone. Anyone who thinks they made the wrong decision to participate with get 7 day window to initiate the refund and get their eth back. 2. Open up the unfair raise again without any time window while keeping the raised amount capped at 750k. Some might ask what is the plan to fill this additional capital, here is how i am thinking: a) add more brag-worthy insights to OpenRep dashboard with easy to share functionality that encourages users to share those stats on X, hence bringing in more people to explore the product. b) worth with legit KOLs to get more distribution. c) partner with chains/projects whose insights are available on OpenRep to get more distribution. I feel confident that if we do this right and keep shipping a solid product, getting more capital should be easy. PS: i understand that this action plan may disappoint some folks and might come across as unprofessional. I am sorry for that, and acknowledge we could have better communicated the minimum raise capital condition. But since we literally change things every 24 hours based on community feedback, errors like this seem avoidable to me. We are learning alongside you as we build. Lastly, to everyone who chooses a refund, I sincerely apologise again 🙏. I hope we get to regain your trust in coming months by our products. Until then, Gmerc 🫡 see you on Mars 🚀

Some personal thoughts that I feel are important for the Mercle community: 1. We have been bootstrapping Mercle for the past 2 years, trying to do things the right way. Most importantly, building a community on some core values that we believe in. 2. In June 2022, when I was just starting out, I invested my personal savings of $250,000 + we raised a very small amount of funding ($320,000) led by Protocol Labs & a few angels + we got some grants worth $150,000 from Aave, Filecoin, Polygon, etc. 3. As of today, we have diluted 2% of our equity to investors, angels & advisors. The rest is all with the team, hence more tokens for the community. 3. In Jan 2024, we ran our first incentive program where close to 300k users participated, generating approx. $400,000 in revenue (badges mint). These users were distributed HOS NFT, which will be used while rewarding these participants at TGE. 4. The unfair raise on 14th is our first attempt at raising direct capital from our community and giving them a chance to be an investor with the same upside and wealth creation opportunity (if Mercle is successful). 5. You will be clearly told about all terms like vesting, valuation, tokens, etc., just like an investor. 6. On the 14th, we will also be launching OpenRep (our product around reputation) and the next steps for the HumanED & Hub waitlist (our proof of personhood solution). We want to do this to make sure you know where you are putting your money and what our capabilities are in terms of building an actual product. I am just sharing everything that I feel is important for the Mercle community to know before participating in the unfair raise. If I have missed anything, feel free to DM me or ask openly in comments. gmercle 🫡 gmarss!! 🚀

What is OpenRep (Open Reputation Layer for onchain Internet), and why should you care? Throughout history, reputation has worked as an important social currency for humans to get resources, form communities or alliances, and gain social status. In fact, during our days as hunter-gatherers, having a good reputation could mean the difference between life and death. Before moving ahead, let's try to take a deeper look at reputation and how it is formed. Imagine a crypto trader who shares his calls. If his calls are usually spot-on and people make money, everyone sees him as a skilled, honest trader. That's reputation: Step 1 (Action) : someone does something. Step 2 (Communication/Sharing information) : others see it and talk about it. Step 3 (Opinions) : everyone decides what they think about him. If you look carefully, the core process hasn't changed over time, it is still these 3 steps. However, because of all the progress and innovation, we have discovered more efficient ways of sharing (starting with writing, printing, and now the Internet). Sharing information has become much faster and more global, which has also made reputations even more powerful and complex for modern humans. Enough of history and boring theory, coming back to the present. Internet, or you can say more specifically social media, has been the biggest catalyst for reputation for the last 25 years. Social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, etc., have enabled humans to take action in the form of posting content, likes, and comments. Their global distribution has allowed those actions to be seen by a large number of people within seconds and form their opinions. The only issue with this is that it is all centralized and controlled by the platform, which leaves users in a situation where they either follow the rules or they will be kicked out. Our thesis is that if blockchain networks are the next iteration of the internet, they will allow new internet native communities and cultures to create their own tokens. Over time, these tokens won't just represent communities, they will also give users a way to become owners of product & services they love. Most importantly how people interact (hold/trade/stake/burn etc) with these tokens will play a key role in forming the reputation in this new digital world. While data on these blockchains is open and accessible to everyone, it is not available in a form that can be directly used to consume and form opinions about the users. Example data from Ethereum blockchain (Uniswap trx): With OpenRep, we attempt to create this open-source data layer that will allow anyone to consume this action data from blockchain in a clean, standard, and directly usable form. Example data from Ethereum blockchain (Uniswap trx): How do we see OpenRep being used? B2B: Applications can use the OpenRep API for personalized user interfaces, targeted airdrops, loyalty programs with token rewards, and other incentives. B2C: Users get to own and share their reputation data on their own terms with different platforms

Roadmap looks right on track. OpenRep next step, launching this week.

Mercle fam, thought on new merch??

This thread is about my BAD experience with @andyyy from Rollup. I've been thinking about writing this post for days now. But I wanted to make sure I recalled all my interactions with him accurately, to be fair and completely honest with my opinion while keeping my emotions aside. It is very personal for me since it involves @0xmercle and everything around it.