Introduction
We live in an era where it is easier to meet knowledgeable and passionate people interested in the same things as us online rather than in real life. Littlefish Foundation was founded under these circumstances, by the gathering of like minded and like hearted individuals around the fire of Catalyst. We found out quickly that finding people and starting online communities with shared values and common goals was simple. The problem is coordination.
Almost as quickly as a global decentralized community gathers, it struggles with the tools available. Discord, Telegram, Miro, Drive and the entire suite of existing, popular tools play their roles. Yet there are few tools that solve the common problems of decentralized communities. Littlefish Platform focuses on these problems, removing friction and making decentralized collaboration more accessible to everyone.
Concept
- littlefish - individuals that participate in the system
- Colonies - collection of littlefish that act in the real world
- Actions - a real action in the world that is represented by an NFTs
Littlefish are the actors of the system. They are individuals who want to enable and enact change in the world. They come together on the Littlefish Platform and form colonies.
Colonies are digital representations of real world relationships. These can be as loose as a group of friends or well defined entities like a business or a charity organization.
Colonies perform real world activities. A group of friends may clean litter on the beach. A business may produce a new report or announce a new product. A charity may organize a new campaign, build houses for those in need, etc. These activities are then documented in whatever way colony members choose - video, image, recordings, tweets, instagram, … Collected multimedia is then published as NFTs called Actions.
Actions are Proof of Activity. They contain information showing that something has been done to impact the world. Once generated, an Action can be sold by the colony to generate funding. But why buy an Action which represents something that has already been done? There are several reasons:
- Buying an Action supports the colony, incentivizing them to continue performing similar actions. In this manner buying is akin to donating.
- Actions represent values. Buying an action means you support the activity the action represents. It signals the buyers’ values.
- Actions can be resold. They may be investments. For example an Action representing the act of writing the first draft of a Whitepaper could be worth much more if the project takes off.
Current Stage
All work leading up to this proposal:
- Development of a Wordpress website started February 2022. This website allows the users to connect their wallet and join/create new colonies. Currently we are able to:
- Create &/ Join colonies
- Open a colony treasury wallet
- Delegate to an SPO
- Donate to a colony
- Our most recent work: Detailed colony model, systems map, initial UI/UX designs: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOPNZgXQ=/?invite_link_id=938169107806
- Our earlier work: Flowcharts and Platform Design Tool analysis: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOWGnhvE=/?invite_link_id=377119452817
- <https://github.com/littlefish-foundation>
- <https://discord.gg/tBKZd5AGUS>
- Our weekly community meeting, Mondays at 7PM UTC are available on our youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/foMO8GyZEuM?start=&t=1s- Website: <https://littlefish.foundation/>
- Twitter: <https://twitter.com/LittleFishDAO>
- Whitepaper - Work in Progress: <https://docs.littlefish.foundation/>
Proposal Scope - Phase 1
We are in the product design stage and have many ideas that can be incorporated into the system. This proposal outlines our first steps where we start small and take on an iterative approach. Our proposed solution consists of these parts:
- Continue the development of the website with colonies, a gamified UI/UX based on the adventures of littlefish, NFT gallery for littlefish and colonies, browse colonies.
- Blockchain Features - NFT minting, direct donations to colonies and NFT purchases for colony NFTs
- Colony Features - Members, selling Actions, displaying Actions created by the colony, reward sharing for Action sales, colony wallet, colony dashboard including all relevant information like Discord, Telegram, Number of Donations, Members, sponsor SPOs, etc… (see our Miro Board for early designs)
- Littlefish Features - Colony membership, creating Actions, buying Actions, NFT gallery.
Future of the Project - Phase 2 and Beyond
The proposed solution is the first step in implementing a platform of services. Beyond these early features, we are considering:
- A Littlefish Token, the currency with which each Action is sold. Rewarding token holders with additional tokens generated from each Action sale.
- Guilds - Specific type of colonies collecting professionals with similar skill sets. Eg. Artists Guild, Developers Guild, … These will allow professionals to promote their skills, build reputation and allow skills markets to emerge in the future.
- Royalties from secondary market sales of Actions.
- Additional tooling for within and inter-colony collaboration: Advanced colony search, member search, custom data integrations, Discord bot …
- Custom colony NFTs
- Colony member tracking - How much support, activity has the member provided?
- Colony tokens with basic governance, colony member rewards.
Note: These features are beyond the scope of this proposal. They’re given here to highlight the larger project and various future routes it may evolve.
Coordinating decentralized collaboration is one of the most valuable problems in blockchain. Many great minds are at work organizing communities and struggling with the tools available. Littlefish is a solution to decentralized collaboration that supports both the end users and the builders of these communities.
Our guiding questions:
1 - What are the key applications that underpin the application ecosystem on other platforms?
Tools enabling decentralized cooperation exist on other chains and are growing in popularity while Cardano lags behind. Tools like Coordinape and SourceCred provide a method of valuing effort and funding decentralized work. Littlefish Platform funding colonies through Actions is comparable yet a complementary method of funding work.
2 - What needs do users of Cardano have that could be solved by new applications?
A critical problem many Cardano users are learning about is coordinating collaborative efforts in a decentralized world. Existing tools lack the focus and the incentives to align individual efforts towards collective goals. Decentralized communities like Catalyst, Cardano4Climate and others need user friendly tools that are purpose built to coordinate between members.
3 - What applications deliver the highest amount of value with the least amount of technical sophistication?
Most blockchain DApps are not user friendly. They demand technical knowledge. Wallets, signatures, irredeemable funds, terrible UI/UX … Things are scary for the layperson. The applications that will provide the most value will be those that make it as user friendly as possible. It will be those that abstract away the technical complexities and hide it behind pretty UI/UX. This is what we believe in our design. We will always aim to improve usability and bring value to casual users beyond the blockchain bubble by making things accessible. We believe this will not only provide the most value to end users but bring in more users. As the challenge states: Quality Dapps and integrations will increase utility & adoption of Cardano.
The success of the proposal depends on our ability to execute the technical and social challenges ahead. The barebones version of the system, without a Littlefish Token, is relatively easy to implement. It is more or less a web2 application which uses existing tools to communicate with the blockchain. Our expertise as a team lies in producing such products. In the early stages the main challenge will be to technically specify, implement and test Action NFTs. Yet again this is more or less a software development problem.
The real challenge is in implementing a tokenized economy, where the Littlefish Token implements some core logic of the system. Royalties and reward sharing systems must be created. An iterative design and deployment approach must be devised in order to implement features in the future while making sure the system continues operating smoothly. The development of these features will be technically challenging and we’ll have to learn how to do these things.
Project’s success also depends on our ability to market and promote it. If we can overcome the technical challenges and build such a system, but only a handful of people use it, then we’ve failed. And even to solve the technical challenges, we’ll need expert help which we can get through communicating our vision and building our own colony. As Littlefish Foundation we’ve been active in the Cardano & Catalyst space since the start of Fund7. Our Discord is approaching 100 people and we have around 10 people who join our meetings consistently. We’re building the first colony on our platform. Our main and most difficult challenge is to bring these people together to produce actions that will turn this idea into reality.