Announcing the Verify Your Brain tribe and its token, VYB (vybrainium)
This post is meant to serve as the initial White Paper for a new Hive-Engine tribe and token operating on the Hive blockchain. The new tribe is Verify Your Brain and its tokens are VYB (vybrainium) and VYBM (vybrainium miner).
VYB and Verify Your Brain have been designed to complement POB and the Proof of Brain tribe, as a sort of ‘parallel universe’ (or maybe, a 'universe inside a universe', or a metaverse, or an anti-metaverse, or a meta-metaverse, or a meta-anti-metaverse, 😁 ...).
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artistic impressions by action man
](https://peakd.com/@calumam)
Verify Your Brain -- Complete Freedom from Downvotes and Self-Votes
Whereas all Hive posts are recorded on the Hive blockchain, along with upvotes and downvotes, posts made to Verify Your Brain can still, technically, be downvoted. However, the Verify Your Brain tribe will be configured such that downvotes will have zero influence over the tribe and its token (VYB).
Downvotes will not be necessary because all enforcement of the tribe’s community standards will be handled using Hive-Engine’s tribe-wide ‘mute’ function. An anti-plagiarism / anti-abuse team will be put in charge of the tribe-wide ‘mute’ capability. Any violations of the tribe’s community standards will be met with either a warning of a potential future mute, a temporary mute, or a permanent mute. Any such actions will be explained, and an appeals process will be implemented.
Feedback is requested regarding development of the tribe’s community standards (see below for details). One of those community standards will be an outright prohibition against self-voting -- including self-voting by ‘alt accounts’. Circle-voting will also be closely monitored, and some form of community enforcement protocol will be implemented to mitigate circle voting and other forms of upvote-abuse.
Verify Your Brain -- Visionary, not Reactionary, but Timely Nonetheless
Although the genesis idea for Verify Your Brain and VYB took root about nine months ago, it seems this announcement is quite timely.
@dreemsteem published a post a few days ago lamenting the divided and sometimes negative energy on Hive that has led to high-quality authors leaving Hive or preparing to leave. We are including snippets from that post immediately below, with several of the ensuing comments dispersed throughout this current post.
We believe Verify Your Brain represents a potential solution to much of the divided energy and heated disagreements on Hive that seem to be reaching a crescendo of late. Although Verify Your Brain does not purport to solve all of Hive's problems, it represents a robust Layer 2 solution to problems that perhaps eventually need to be addressed on Layer 1, but for now need to be met with experimentation, and experimentation is best done on Layer 2 (e.g. via Hive-Engine tribes and tokens).
The beauty of Layer 2 is that folks who are passionate about a given ethos can be free and vocal, and those who disagree with that ethos can do the same -- but each respective 'worldview' can be relegated to discourse (or disinterest) rather than detriment and destruction. If you disagree with the way a Layer 2 tribe is being managed, you are free to stop engaging with that tribe and focus on another Layer 2 tribe, or even create your own.
We have recognized the need for a better way to handle plagiarism and abuse -- without the need for downvotes -- and we aim to see the extent to which that 'worldview' is widespread within the current Hive community and whether or not it might lead to growth via new users.
Here are some relevant snippets from @dreemsteem's post:
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Regarding that second-to-last bullet point, creating, launching, and managing Verify Your Brain and VYB (and all the exciting things we have in store for both) is our answer.
We sincerely hope that you will either join us or be inspired to create and buidl something of your own -- something that will ignite both (y)our passions and the passions of others!
Verify Your Brain -- Where Whale Accounts become “Just Like the Rest of Us” (in Terms of Their Power to Spread Negative Energy)
When Superman comes into contact with Kryptonite, he loses his superhuman powers and becomes ‘just a normal guy’.
Similarly, when Hive whale accounts come into contact with Vybrainium, they lose their superhuman ability to spread negative energy (and, FWIW, Vybrainium whales can never obtain that ability).
Although whale accounts will always have exceptional influence within a tribe or community (by virtue of their more powerful upvotes), Verify Your Brain‘s freedom from downvotes means whale accounts will be unable to use their stake as a weapon against other tribe members -- positive energy, engaging discourse, 'walk away' indifference, or a petition for review by the anti-abuse team (in light of the community standards) represent a whale's only possible responses.
In addition, Verify Your Brain‘s freedom from self-voting likewise reduces the ability of whales to abuse the rewards pool.
We view Vybrainium as Hive's heretofore-hidden Kryptonite against abusive behaviors, removing any would-be superhuman negative energy from your midst (if you choose to dwell among us). Folks who disagree with your posts, or with the level of rewards earned by any of your posts, will be relegated to responding one of three ways -- [1] engage via thoughtful dialogue, [2] ignore and walk away, or [3] request a review of your post(s) by the anti-abuse team, in light of the community standards.
If you are psychologically tied to using downvotes or self-votes, then Verify Your Brain is not the place for you.
Verify Your Brain -- Boosting POB while Giving POB’ers a Voice (for Freedom from Subjective Downvotes on Proof of Brain)
Claiming VYB Tokens will Likely Boost the Market Value of POB
This is, of course, merely opinion and conjecture, and not financial advice.
As mentioned above, Verify Your Brain is being birthed to complement the Proof of Brain tribe. One of the ways we’re doing that is by intentionally funneling any initial demand for VYB tokens through the open market for POB, an activity that we expect will (at least temporarily) boost the market value of POB.
Between now and the launch of the VYB rewards pool (on or around 12/18/2021), there will only be three ways to acquire VYB tokens:
- Via the upcoming VYB airdrop (scheduled to occur on or about 12/15/2021) (see below for details about the airdrop).
- By claiming VYB with POB (see below for details about how to claim VYB using POB).
- By participating in one of our VYB-sponsored contests (such as ditching that fifth glyph via Proof of Blind -- see below for details).
This means that, if you want to hodl VYB and stack it while it’s cheap (the claim-exchange ratio starts out at 4 VYB for every 1 POB), you’re going to need liquid POB, which will most likely mean purchasing POB on the open market.
Claiming VYB tokens will give POB'ers a Voice -- allowing them to vote for greater freedom from subjective downvotes on Proof of Brain
Existing POB holders will be able to directly exchange their POB for VYB (see below for details) and, as they do so, they will be creating and strengthening an anti-subjective-DV fund (@vyb.pob) that will [1] provide compensatory upvotes (and/or tips) to Proof of Brain posts/accountholders receiving subjective downvotes and [2] fund one of the Proof of Brain tribe-improvement accounts (@pob-fund), via 50% of its curation rewards.
As such, VYB and Verify Your Brain, in addition to operating as a DV-free zone, will provide a market-based mechanism wherein members of the Proof of Brain tribe can directly ‘vote’ on how much anti-subjective-downvote power they want operating within the Proof of Brain tribe (by funding @vyb.pob, which can be done by directly exchanging POB for VYB, as detailed near the end of this current post).
Verify Your Brain -- New-and-Improved Community Curation
Within the Verify Your Brain tribe, we will be launching a community-driven curation project, which will be organized and managed by @calumam. A team of curators will be tasked with curating all manners of content with varying levels of quality (on Proof of Brain and Verify Your Brain). In addition to earning curation rewards based on their own staked POB and VYB, community curators will receive additional compensation, either through delegated POB or delegated VYB or via a share of the curation rewards generated by @vyb.pob and @vyb.vyb. Details will be included in a future announcement post.
Verify Your Brain -- POB & VYB: Two Tokens to Rule them All!
In March 2021 (in this post) @trostparadox described, under the heading Two Tokens to Rule them All, a two-token 'proof of brain' rewards system, wherein one token is exchangeable and one is not. Although the relationship between POB and VYB is distinctly different from the two-token system described in that post, there are some inherent (and intended) similarities.
Verify Your Brain is being configued in such a way that VYB will mimic the non-exchangeable token described by @trostparadox in the aforementioned post. Although VYB will be exchangeable, just like any other Hive-Engine token, the Verify Your Brain Community Curation Project (mentioned above) will intentionally discourage authors from unstaking or selling any of the VYB they earn.
Authors submitting posts via Proof of Brain will earn rewards in both POB and VYB (although not in equal amounts). They will receive their POB rewards unstaked and they will be free to immediately stake them, delegate them, or sell them (much like the 'exchangeable' token in @trostparadox's originally-envisioned two-token system).
However, they will receive their VYB rewards fully staked. This means that authors must 'unstake' their VYB rewards before being able to sell or transfer them; and unstaking will cause their account to be temporarily blacklisted from the Verify Your Brain Community Curation Project, which will likely cause them to lose out on some would-be future VYB author rewards. (Exceptions will be made for authors who wish to unstake and transfer their VYB to one of their own 'alt accounts'.)
As such, if authors want to continue earning VYB, it will be in their best interest to hodl and stack VYB (rather than unstake it or sell it).
The net effect, then, is that POB will continue to function as the fully exchangeable token it has always been, whereas VYB will effectively function (at least for active authors) as a non-exchangeable token.
Verify Your Brain -- HODL VYB, for Your Retirement ...
As mentioned above, active authors will be potentially forfeiting future VYB rewards if they unstake the VYB they earn. Our intention here is to clearly establish VYB as a HODLers token, a token that you will want to keep until you reach retirement age. When you are ready to retire, then would be a great time to unstake your VYB and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
This is, of course, merely lighthearted opinion and conjecture, and not financial advice.
We will also be actively working, over the coming months, to make VYB attractive to general investors, and to increase the available use cases for both POB and VYB -- the two tokens designed to rule them all.
How will Verify Your Brain and Proof of Brain work together?
In the coming weeks, the Proof of Brain tribe will be upgrading its front-end (proofofbrain.io) to Outpost (examples of the Outpost front-end can be found here). The planned upgrade was recently announced by @proofofbrainio in this post. The Verify Your Brain tribe will also utilize Outpost as its front-end (which will be accessible at vybrainium.com).
The two front-ends will be 'tied' to each other via a pair of toggle hyperlinks in the upper lefthand corner of the browser window (i.e. clicking the Proof of Brain logo will take you to proofofbrain.io; clicking the Verify Your Brain logo will take you to vybrainium.com). For example, if you are browsing a post in Proof of Brain and want to view its pending VYB rewards instead of its pending POB rewards, you can click the Verify Your Brain logo at the upper left and you will immediately be taken to that post on the vybrainium.com server rather than the proofofbrain.io server (and vice versa).
In the future, we plan to modify the respective instantiations of Outpost so that you can view both POB and VYB rewards from both front-ends. We also hope to make it so that you can view your respective vote value for both tokens from both front-ends, and possibly even apply two different vote percentages simultaneously.
One or more Verify Your Brain channels will be added to the Proof of Brain discord server, for discussions that are specifically related to Verify Your Brain (including the appeals process regarding tribe-wide VYB mutes). Generic discussions that relate equally to both tribes, and discussions that are specific to the Proof of Brain tribe, will continue utilizing the existing Proof of Brain discord channels.
How will Verify Your Brain and Proof of Brain be different from each other?
Verify Your Brain will function as a downvote-free and self-vote-free zone
As mentioned previously, the main difference between the two universes is that Verify Your Brain will function as a completely downvote-free (and self-vote-free) zone. This means that 100% of the enforcement of Verify Your Brain community standards will be handled via the tribe-wide ‘mute’ function rather than via downvotes. With that said, the VYB anti-plagiarism / anti-abuse process will be effectively the same as the current POB process, which is being expertly led by @scholaris.pob. The only difference will be that the anti-plagiarism / anti-abuse team will be granted mute authority over the VYB token (mute authority can be granted by the issuing account, @vyb.vyb), such that rather than issuing downvotes whenever they encounter plagiarism (or other forms of abuse), they will be able to issue mutes or warnings regarding potential mutes (with respect to the VYB token).
Violation of community standards, such as posting plagiarized content or consistently self-voting, will result in a tribe-wide mute, which will remove the potential for that account to earn future VYB, both as an author and as a curator. The responsibility for tribe-wide muting will be placed in the hands of an anti-plagiarism / anti-abuse team, to be led by @scholaris. Warnings for borderline violations and an appeals process will also be implemented.
This does not mean that Hive users cannot cast downvotes against Verify Your Brain posts. Rather, it means that any downvotes cast against Verify Your Brain posts will in no way affect VYB author or curator rewards. Downvotes to those posts can still affect HIVE/HP/HBD rewards as well as rewards associated with other Layer 2 tokens.
What this means is that, if your supporters want to ensure that their upvotes are fully insulated from downvotes, then they should exclusively power-up VYB, at least for the account they use to upvote Verify Your Brain posts. The exception to this would be that, depending upon the extent to which POB'ers 'vote' to fund the @vyb.pob account (as described elsewhere herein), the Proof of Brain tribe could also function as a zone either free of subjective DVs or partially insulated from the effects of subjective DVs.
Verify Your Brain will launch with very specific community standards that will be explicitly defined up front ...
Another primary difference will center around the development and enforcement of community standards. The Proof of Brain tribe was launched as a bold, brave experiment, with a single community standard: "Have a brain." As such, the tribe was immediately recognized as widely inclusive and thus garnered considerable interest acro