In the last two years, the world has changed a lot. I don't remember a time in my life, where I experienced so many global changes as now, and this is only the beginning. The world's digitalization is happening at a much faster speed. New technologies like Blockchain, VR, AR, 5G, AI, self-driving cars, manned drones, brain implanted chips, and tourist space flights are on the horizon, and not only dreams anymore. We are still in the early stages, but the speed at which these technological advances are happening is outpacing previous developments by far.
Let us take for example the Internet vs the Bitcoin Network. The adoption rate of Bitcoin is much higher compared to the Internet. It is projected that in the next four years Bitcoin will have around 1 billion users, where the Internet needed almost twice as much time to reach the same numbers.
Bitcoin and Internet Adoption – Source: Michael Levin via @visbitcoin
All these different technologies are getting developed and deployed in real-world solutions right now with unbelievable financial support. We are experiencing a shift where the world gets fully digitally connected and a new virtual world aka the "metaverse" with almost infinite possibilities to thrive. All this is not science fiction or happening in a few years. It is happening right now when you see one of the biggest companies in the world with a market cap of almost one trillion USD change their name from "Facebook" to "Meta". The world in which we will live in 5 years, can only be imagined.
But, all these upcoming massive disruptions have one thing in common: "opportunity". In a world where education happens more through youtube than in schools, new cards are being dealt and almost anybody can benefit from it.
Thanks to new technologies like Blockchain we can catch and create value in ways that were impossible before, literally life-changing. Take for example the game Axie Infinity. Many users in the Philippines can now make a living simply by playing. And they can even earn a multiple of their average salary.
So why is not everybody involved in these innovations? How can we better onboard users to innovations and let them engage with these life-changing technologies? Furthermore, how can we further foster innovation and adoption of all these new technologies securely? Our answer is:
Through Education and Collaboration.
In the following, I describe how I reimagine the future and how I want to help to transform it with trustedd.
trustedd – the ideal unicorn
Almost exactly 3 years ago, I came up with the idea of trustedd. This was not an overnight idea, it is the result of trying to solve many problems I came along with when I wanted to start a new Online Magazine with my core principles in mind.
I am sure you now have many questions in mind. What is trustedd? How can I benefit from it? Why will it be your new hangout space all things crypto and blockchain? And again another promise to change the world?
trustedd is a social media platform and marketplace with the goal to transform into a decentralized autonomous organization/company. You can see it as a consolidation of several web services with an underlying decentralized trust layer and an intuitive user experience.
Nowadays the internet is like the wild west, full of misinformation and scams between the huge amount of information we have access to. It became exceedingly difficult to distinguish between real information and misinformation, find "real" experts. One might find it daunting to even open a link to a website, that, perhaps, could make you a victim of being scammed. In an environment like this, it is of course not easy to grow and use the full available potential of software and information that exist today. It is no wonder that it is hard for people to explore new technologies like crypto, with all the traps they have on the way.
Most people don't even recognize this as a problem. It is just the way how things are. With trustedd, we solve these problems, by creating a space where shared information, projects, experts, (d)apps, … get transparently validated by the community and deemed as trustworthy.
A great example of the problem is how recently misinformation got fought publicly on Twitter:
Source: Twitter Image: Reddit
On trustedd, this is a core feature. We incentivize users to share information and curate the information from others. Users will be able to vote if they trust the shown information or not. If not they have to explain why.
The outcome is visible at the first glance when opening a page. Through this voting system, users, projects, games, DAOs,… can transparently earn a reputation score.
What happens when you see this from the big picture, is that anyone in the world with internet access gets the opportunity to consume curated information and with this also the best education. trustedd is structured in a way, that you can dive deep into any topic as far as you want and find related projects, questions, proven users, or in the future even jobs. All this in a trustedd environment – curated and governed by its users.
You will be able to trust information, potential partners, new protocols,… before you even know about them. Where for example B2B businesses needed 1-2 Months to find potential partners, trustedd can cut this down to a few seconds thanks to its innovative UI and transparency.
I was pretty excited when I saw the interview of Garry Tan and Brian Armstrong and their view of the ongoing "Crypto Revolution", the potential impact of curated information and DAOs. I share a very similar vision and had similar thought processes back then when I came up with the idea of trustedd. With an integrated "App / Product Store" I go a step further and embrace action. Any shared post can be transparently connected to products or apps. Thanks to the transparently shared trust of the community, users are only one click away to engage with new applications without the need to verify that it is not a scam. A win-win for the user and the developer/creator. A solution needed as Vitalik Buterin was posting about a year ago:
Source: Twitter
This is just a glimpse of the power you, other creators, businesses, organizations, and communities will get when they are on trustedd. This is not just my vision, it is about to become real. While we are working further on the first MVP to launch in Q1 2022, we are researching and planning a more decentralized platform and DAO. Stay tuned!
You may ask why trustedd didn't launch yet? Let us have a look what happened in the last two years:
The pause and comeback
While we didn't launch like initially planned back in early 2020, we can do it now with power, technology, and a community that wasn't possible back then. So what happened?
During the Websummit 2019, I was able to show trustedd to the first people. I was also invited to speak on a stage, under the theme "the future of content":
One of the positive consequences of meeting these great people was the feedback I got from them, especially the ones from investors. When I showed trustedd, I wanted to launch the platform for all different kinds of topics, and with the way the platform is designed, it can work for any industry or topic. When trustedd came to life 3 years ago, it was not trustedd, it was called intocrypto.com. Prior to now, I wanted to build an online magazine around blockchain and crypto when I stumbled across many problems. And the solution was trustedd with the crypto user in mind. Through the feedback I got, I changed the strategy, rebranded the idea, and wanted to go broader with general topics.
I was approaching too many sites all at once. Consequently, when I was talking to the first potential users besides crypto, I wasn’t clear about which topics and content I wanted.
It was amazing to meet @JohnyCrypto @WebSummit. Johny was our first follower. Thanks for your support and your feedback in the last months 👌 pic.twitter.com/b9cf4xYAWo
— trustedd (@trusteddcom) November 8, 2019
Meeting our very first follower @johnycrypto at Websummit – Source: Twitter
I was running out of money, what became clear to me, was that I needed a break and this sometimes is the best decision. In early 2020 I decided to try something new and got into e-commerce, starting with dropshipping. I had to soon realize that building a sustainable business with the missing transparency and the power of Facebook and Google can be more difficult than it seems. Not to mention the difficulty to find reliable business partners, the software and apps you should work with. trustedd would be again the perfect solution.
Around March this year, I was then questioning myself, is eCommerce really what drives me? No, my passion is tech and innovations! But, the thought daunted me that I would regret it if I didn’t try to launch trustedd at some point in my life. Back then I got again into crypto and blockchain and quickly realized, a lot of things have changed. It is now possible to build decentralized applications with a great user experience similar to normal applications. But even more important, the same problems from back in 2018 are not only still there but more present and costly than ever.
The Founding Members Club (cancelled)
Fast forward 8 months later, I am excited to kickstart the revolution with all things I have learned on the way by building a community and bringing 10.000 Founding Member NFTs on the Blockchain to life.
Any holder of the Founding Member NFT, no matter if a person, a business, a brand, or organization symbolizes that he wants to foster innovation and the adoption of new technologies through education & collaboration.
Belonging to the limited Founding Members Club will give you exclusive offers, access, and benefits within the trustedd ecosystem.
You can join the movement today and secure your Founding Member NFT by simply entering the Whitelist. For other updates or questions, you can follow trustedd on Twitter.
Once we reach a larger audience during the NFT Sale, I am going to publicly invite, with the support of the community, some "industry leaders" to join the Founding Members Club so that we can foster innovation and adoption through education and collaboration together.
Giveaway
Another way to get a Founding Member NFT is by joining our Kickstart Giveaway worth over 30.000 USD. You will get the chance to mint 1 of 100 Founding Member NFTs for free. More information can be found on our giveaway page.
We will release more information about the sale and whitelisting process, the benefits, and use cases of the Founding Member NFT in the coming days. Meanwhile, you can check our homepage for some sneak peeks and more.
Update: The trustedd Founding Member Club was canceled and trustedd will launch in a different way. There was never minted any token or NFT. Please be aware of scams.
