Perpetual PowerChain / Gamification / Value of Blockchain

[vr00n]

@patwater via NYC Big Apps competition. They already have a prototype up and running on https://www.powerchain.nyc

via https://www.perpetualny.com/blog/building-perpetual-power-chain-from-idea-to-top-3

We settled on the core idea that there had to be a better way for New Yorkers to increase their environmentally-friendly habits. As the idea developed, we started to think about ways that we could incentivize the average citizen and it started to become clear that gamification and the ability to gain rewards had the largest potential to cause measurable change across the city. Additionally, with the backing of the city government and agencies like the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, the idea could be shared extensively throughout the five boroughs or plug into an existing effort like GreeNYC.

In our past experiences designing for the blockchain, it was important to ensure the product functionality was most suitably leveraging the blockchain for the true value it offers, and that people could make use of our blockchain-powered product in the most user-friendly way possible.

We decided that the best way to do this was to take our idea of gamification and let users gain rewards in the form of ERC20 tokens while recording user’s green activities on the blockchain. Answers to an energy consumption survey would determine the initial amount and users could gain more coins in the future by plugging into various utility energy-saving programs, taking part in sustainability events, and more.

This approach lays the foundation for a future energy usage accountability system through persistent records and a standardized data format scalable for business and government use. People can use our product today to get their Power Score, representing their eco-friendly behavior. In the future, we plan to calculate a Metro Score to capture the ideal city-wide energy utilization, and use this to benchmark business, government unit, and individual eco-friendly behavior. Over time, the goal is to reach equilibrium among these constituents, using the blockchain as a means to track this information and generate credits and penalties for compliance and deviance respectively.

[christophertull]

I am always a bit skeptical of these gamification approaches. Existing projects already exist without blockchain. Not sure how blockchain changes things?

• https://www.ohmconnect.com/
• https://joulebug.com/

[vr00n]

I agree gamification sort of trivializes the entire endeavor

That's where the "exchange of dune-$" with other services of use signals "a token with utility" vs a "token with entertainment value".

I'm guessing there is research to back this up

[patwater]

Yeah @christophertull VGR's question in Austin was why not just do it like Airline rewards? I still don't really get why the blockchain is needed. Seems the more important thing is getting city partnerships and a seemless user experience. In terms of a winter internship, I suppose students could build a proof of concept app to show how the city could reward households are saving based on their actual water usage from the portal

[vr00n]

Blockchain ensures automation and security in a way that traditional databases do not.

• Automation via smart contracts where the "rules" are encoded in code and therefore enforced digitally and not by the rest of us (tm).
• Security from immutability (you cannot delete a record from the chain once its there).

Issuing Tokens is less related to blockchain and more towards creating a mechanism to start water consumers to take advantage of incentives. Giving them "cash" will not be enough but having the token associated with a secure and automated system that can be trusted because all the rules are enforced by code is better than a token where there is a "chance of shenanigary"

So sure you can implement a simple points based system governed by a set of python scripts and postgres databases but what if a rogue actor decides to meddle with the code and issue themselves a billion dune-dollars?

Ultimately, if there are gains to be had from leveraging trust in accounting something of value (in this case, virtuous water behavior), it is a candidate for implementation on the blockchain. This pattern of thinking has not changed since Austin.

[patwater]

How would a rogue actor meddle in the code? The airlines seem to manage to issue points without anyone meddling

[vr00n]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/10/18/former-boston-airline-agent-pleads-guilty-exchanging-over-flight-tickets-extra-cost/giyVSCjp4hCCvv9E0OofjP/story.html

[vr00n]

Ah sorry you meant if the points are compromised....

blockchain is not crucial from a technical standpoint to implement dune-$ but if you want people to take a "token" seriously, it helps to know that the chances of it being compromised to human flaws is minimal of implemented on the blockchain.