Over the last few months, the Metis ecosystem has grown to become a vibrant, on-chain, and global community, all connected by Metis Smart L2 infrastructure and our shared belief in web3. We are a fully-fledged decentralized economy thanks to the efforts of everyone who believes in the power of Metis to shape the future.
Today, MetisDAO Foundation is proud to announce the upcoming launch of Matrix, a web3 identity system pioneering Reputation Power. Matrix is exploring an idea written by Vitalik in his recent paper on non-transferrable “Soulbound” tokens which represent reputation. Through Matrix and Reputation Power, individuals are empowered to gain recognition for valuable contributions brought to their communities, showcasing web3 credentials, achievements, and more.
Simply put, Reputation Power is a portable and composable reputation earned through on-chain achievements and history. Reputation Power (or RP) can be earned on Matrix for engaging and contributing to protocols, DApps and Decentralized Autonomous Companies (an evolution of DAOs) by performing actions or tasks such as deploying smart contracts, minting NFTs, voting in governance, and more. Imagine owning web3 credentials, representing on-chain achievements for all of your community, frens, builders, and others to easily view on your individual profile.
Reputation Power (or RP) is accrued by performing actions on-chain. Each action has its own RP value set by projects, allowing projects to reward community members and DApp users for valued achievements and milestones. For example, a DEX might value governance voting more heavily than trade executions, as an action that helps the project shape the future of their design; therefore, the project can award more RP for voting than trading on the DEX.
RP accrual is a bit like earning XP in a video game. Similar to a game, individuals can earn RP to level up and gain benefits like the ability to mint nontransferable NFT Badges on their Matrix profile, representing milestone achievements on-chain. NFT Badges are issued by MetisDAO or other DApps on Andromeda and are tied to a users’ wallet addresses on the Metis network. Individuals will be able to build their own profile, check out new RP features, and look up profiles for other users and DACs. Long-term community engagement is empowered, even adding a social element for communities to uniquely reward users for their engagement and contributions.
As an example, “reputation” in web2 enables completely new arrays of interactions and economic activity. For example, if you’re a seller on eBay, you can collect positive or negative buyer feedback depending on your activity. Or, the karma score on your Reddit profile is, broadly speaking, the value that the wider community places on your comments and posts, allowing future content to carry more weight.
Web2 reputation systems, whilst groundbreaking for the 2000s to the early 2010s during the web user story transition from content consumption to content contribution, are generally at odds with the core of web3 and self-custody. The continued existence of your eBay seller feedback or your Reddit karma depends on a centralized database that you, as the user, do not own. Instead, you are effectively allowed to “rent” the reputation by the centralized company and display it on your profile, even though it was your activity and interactions alone creating the reputation.
Reputation Power solves this lack of genuine ownership and enables new, exclusive to web3 features such as composability (which are not possible in web2 reputation systems). These features can only exist on a decentralized network. The Matrix reputation system, which will first deploy on Metis, is unified by the common thread of the Metis Andromeda Smart L2, which can verify the truthfulness of interactions and activity using Ethereum’s security.
Composable and portable reputation is key to fostering new forms of interaction and economic activity. Composable reputation means that you do not have to start from scratch when you move to a new protocol or DAC, as the new users you interact with can see the sum of your contributions on your pseudonymous profile.
As the DAC economy grows on Metis and transitions to replicate the functions of real-world businesses, web3 communities will need a framework by which they can evaluate new members. Decentralized communities will need reputation to form a base layer of trust and assess the competency of people who wish to provide skills and work to achieve shared goals.
Reputation Power acts as a form of trust in a trustless system. In addition to being a way to flex on-chain achievements, Reputation Power can act as a private CV, where users can earn RP from DACs they have worked with before for completing specific tasks, carrying RP to a new DAC and informing others of their competencies. Likewise, users can assess what it’s like to work for a specific DAC using the DAC’s own RP. Imagine if every time you applied for a job in the real world, every prospective company you saw had a score based on the feedback from its current and former employees.
We like to think of this kind of system as something that is brand new to even web3, that of trustless trust. You can trust the legitimacy of those you interact with based on their RP; it is trustless, as you do not place your faith in a centralized entity. RP is secured by the Andromeda Smart L2 and all of the immutability and security that comes with it.
Potential interactions that a reputation system empowers are endless, as it extends the boundaries of web3 beyond simple monetary transactions. We are eager to watch how projects, protocols and DACs integrate Reputation Power within their product designs. We have many ideas for current and future utility such as:
The first Reputation Power event will be a community NFT art competition calling artists to design the first round of RP badges for Metis launching on June 14th, 2022, ending on June 28, 2022. Anyone with design or artistic skills are encouraged to apply. Winners will be rewarded with METIS tokens and a special Metis Mosaic NFT Badge, redeemable upon the launch of Matrix. Learn more about the contest and how to enter to win in the article: METIS NFT Badge Contest for Matrix Reputation Power!
Matrix and the wider RP system are currently undergoing a smart contract audit to ensure that the highest security standards are maintained. Once the audits are complete and the MetisDAO Foundation performs pre-flight checks, Reputation Power will be ready for takeoff.
Join the Matrix community on Telegram for the most up to date announcements regarding the product release. Also stay up to day on the Metis Telegram, Twitter, and other social channels!
We can’t wait to witness history as the community shapes the future of web3, starting on Metis, using this powerful tool.
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