We’ve been talking a lot about our vision for the coming months and the future of the MyBit project. So we thought it’d be useful for us to set out our views and to explain in a bit more detail why we want to turn the platform into a fully autonomous organisation. As well as how we’re going about that.
As you probably know, our vision is to grow MyBit into a platform that is fully self-sufficient. That is, an organisation that’s able to run itself without any input from us. An organisation that’s fully decentralised and fully automated.
Sounds easy, in principle, right? Well, in reality, it’s no easy feat.
Since the notorious DAO fiasco, it’s obvious that releasing a pre-built platform simply doesn’t work. You must have a working platform before anything else. And you have to build up — step by step — towards full automation. You can’t just launch out of the box.
It’s our belief that this staggered approach is the only viable way. Building on each small success means that the model works in the long term. And, in theory, once an organisation is fully decentralised and automated, it can run forever. So long as there’s a market there and an active user base, nothing can stop it.
But first, we should explain why we’re so focused on these two things: automation and decentralisation.
To understand our vision, you’ve got to see the world like we do; It’s broken. Centralised organisations and financial institutions have unprecedented power. When you combine a powerless user base with a powerful few able to exploit the system, you get the chaos we see today. Corruption. Self-interest. Fraud. Every scandal and failing organisation in history has had one thing in common: human weakness.
So what if we could do away with all that?
For a fair, global organisation to exist, it needs to be decentralised and automated. With MyBit, for example, we want to be the global leader for investing capital. That’s a lot of power — and not something you want to be centralised or corruptible.
To do this, we’ve got to think differently. Currently, most corporate structures focus on bottom line profits and rewarding those at the top. It’s how incentive structures work today. By contrast, decentralisation creates a model where everyone is rewarded. Not equally, but based on the effort and resources they put in. It works like a company, except it’s not controlled by a select few.
In theory, it sounds simple. Making it a reality is a bit harder. And that’s what we’re working on right now.
For the rest of this post, I’ll talk you through a couple of the design approaches we’re working on right now. They’re laying the groundwork to eventually make the platform fully self-sufficient, fully automated and truly ‘immortal’.
Our plan is to automate the many aspects of the MyBit platform over the different releases. Initially, the core technology is our focus. That is, the ability to automate investment funds first and foremost. We’ve already started building this — which you can see here — which gives you an idea of how the technology works in practice.
Next will be network security, dispute management and new features. The one we want to focus on now, though, is customer support. It’s a good case study for showing how a fully autonomous system could work — and why they’ll be so useful in the future.
Customer Support
Have you ever thought why customer support at small companies is often really good while larger organisations often struggle? Of course there are exceptions but, in general, the answer lies in the lifespan of a company.
In small companies and start-ups, customer support is initially provided by a core team. It’s really good, personalised and super fast. As organisations grow, they add a team or department to manage customer support. It’s still pretty good and quite fast. Then they hit a tipping point. As organisations grow exponentially, it’s one of the first business functions to be outsourced. All of a sudden, support becomes really bad and super slow.
This model is broken.
Blockchain and decentralisation offers a unique opportunity here. The future of work is changing and, if the ‘gig economy’ continues to grow, we should expect people to be doing different tasks for many different companies in the future. It promises to be more efficient since employees are no longer tied to one position at one company. Instead, wherever there’s a need for their skills, they’ll be able to satisfy it. It’s better for individuals and better for business.
Plus, many of the people involved in the Blockchain space are familiar with the many projects and communities — so why not monetise that? And create a free market while doing it.
And so you can see why decentralising support for MyBit — at both a macro and micro level — makes so much sense. And here’s how it would work:
I want a question answered and state how much I’m willing to pay to have it answered. Then, anyone who makes money answering questions is able to see if it’s worth their time. It is? Then bingo. If not, it may be a complex question that’s been undervalued by the asker. And so a free market pricing model comes into effect.
Another advantage is that it creates shared expenses. Many people can contribute to having a question answered (in effect, crowdsourcing the answer). Everyone wins.
And this whole process can be automated via escrow with smart contracts.
This not only fixes the problem of non-automation, but it provides a better quality experience. And it’s scalable, too. Sure, in some cases responses may be slower, but in the long run quality will be higher because people are only paid for quality answers. Unlike a payroll, where you get paid no matter what.
A company could even give its employees funds to pay the people answering. Though from a security standpoint, there’s still a lot of research and development that needs to be done in this area.
As you can see, when it comes to customer support, it’s an area ripe for revolution. There’s a clear opportunity to fix a broken model. And decentralised, fully autonomous systems are the way to do it.
Fiat to Crypto Conversions
As technologies change, we should too. One area we’re especially looking to automate and decentralise are fiat to crypto conversions.
Initially, we’re planning to use an anchor-node structure similar to what Stellar does (though, we’ll execute it in a very different way). It should also be noted that this is just an intermittent fix. Once OmiseGo has their decentralised exchange running on a global scale, we plan to adopt that.
As with the examples explored earlier, an essential part of automating a process is incentives. It’s important to make sure that people are incentivised to complete the task, but not incentivised enough to conduct adverse actions.
The best example of this is the consensus protocols that secure the major Blockchains. Especially, Ethereum and Proof of Stake. At one end, users are rewarded for verifying transactions through staking their coins (which also adds value to the network). At the other end, someone would have to purchase 51% of the coins to take control of the network.
Right now that would cost an estimated $19.38B.
And even if someone were to do that, others would realise. Money would flow out of Ethereum before the buyer could manipulate transactions enough to retrieve compensation for their efforts. In short, it’s a fool’s errand.
In this way, Ethereum has ensured there’s no market for foul play. And anyone attempting to do so, will lose a large amount of money.
So when it comes to transactions, Ethereum’s consensus protocols show the power of decentralised and autonomous systems. And it’s not even fully realised yet.
A Final Thought
Hopefully this blog has given you a flavour for where we want the MyBit project to go. The future’s even brighter, though.
We’re talking not just a fully automated MyBit, but a fully automated ecosystem. We envisage MyBit being funded through AI investment DAOs with all production, delivery and maintenance for machines being done by machines. One day, we hope to even let people invest in the machines that build the factories for building the machines…
You get the idea.
Until next time, guys.
Your MyBit Team.
