Meta-currencies are everywhere: SAT Score, click-through-rates, Google PageRank, likes/follows, ballot voting, download counts, consumer reviews, machine learning weights, citations… Those non-financial units of accounting guide our individual and collective appreciation of value, shaping our economic decisions.As we navigate the shift from the industrial to the information economy, the acceleration of information systems exacerbates the need for more efficient meta-currencies to shape the new foundation for our economies and societies: more nuanced, dynamic and context-aware.

Today, meta-currencies are mostly proprietary and concentrated within corporately-owned monolithic platforms and constitute core components of their technology: search engines, social networks, machine learning models rely primarily on the algorithmic computation of data signals into scores.

This concentration leads to several challenges:

• Structural advantage: as we look up to those platforms to coordinate our societies and economies, humanity has a data vendor lock-in problem. Data network effects are now amplified by the recursiveness of machine learning training and the concentration of computational power. This not only prevents users from opting out, but also stifles innovation by raising the barrier to entry to new platform developers.

• Credible neutrality: platform operators are biased toward their corporate KPIs and ideologies, which translates into different layers of arbitrary censorship, control and manipulation. The decision to shape a language model or a fact-checking technology is not achieved through democratic consensus among pluralistic forms of dialectic, but rather by elitist echo chambers, very often disconnected from the real world. As a consequence, our culture and the fabric of society is oriented towards influencer lifestyle, controversies for the sake of clickbait and engagement, consumerism and the counterproductive culture war promoting caricatures and gotcha moments.

• Ownership: eventually, as we shift toward the information economy, should we hand over ownership of the new foundations of our societies and economies to tech corporations? Can we really be happy if our meta-currencies are dispensed through centralized servers that can arbitrarily revoke them at any time? When meta-currencies become our intersectional identity, our trust mechanism, the rails of our information curation and economic decisions, is it a good idea to trust commercial companies for handling them? What about the governance of those infrastructures? And the profit they derive?

The need for a new internet has been advocated for decades: from the Cypherpunk movement to the very pioneers of the Internet, such as Tim-Berners Lee, Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, or Marc Andreessen; we have been repeatedly warned about the dangers of Internet infrastructure concentration and corporatization.

As a response, many decentralized data protocols and applications have been introduced, and it took the age of Blockchain technology (such as Bitcoin and Ethereum…) for decentralized systems to gain global recognition. For the first time, open-source and public protocols had a business model that would attract talent and funding.

Until now, blockchain technology and web3 have been used mostly to coordinate around scarce and transferable assets, leading to an overemphasis on financial transactions, creating a narrow and speculative environment that overshadows its broader capabilities. The next innovation cycle will blend currencies (tokens) and meta-currencies (points) fostering a symbiotic interplay of identity, merits, reputation, algorithmic predictions, gamification, trust networks, traceability, alignment and value coordination.

Meta-currencies are about to have their ERC-20 moment. With Immutable Points, we are setting the foundation for the long-desired New Internet we can rely on for coordinating our transition to the exponential age. An internet where users have full ownership of their identity and relationships; where internet companies become service providers, not landlords. An Internet where pluralistic and probabilistic consensus are achieved through credibly neutral infrastructures, leading to organic and authentic cultural production, unlocking sustainable positive-sum incentive models.

Immutable Points are to d/acc what tokens are to DeFi.

Let’s look at practical applications for Immutable Points and what it means for the web3 space and the Internet as a whole:

Decentralized Power & Openness: We talk a lot about decentralization, but Immutable Points actually walk the walk. It’s about giving power back to the contributors, not just the crypto whales. Often, blockchain networks see power concentrated in the hands of a few (the whales), creating a plutocratic oligarchy. IPSP disrupts this by enabling direct contribution-based governance. Your influence grows with your contributions, not your wallet size. This approach democratizes power, making the system fairer and more representative of the community. This isn't just for the crypto elite. Whether you're a newbie or a seasoned hodler, your voice matters. More grassroots, less Wall Street!

Trust & Ironclad Security: On many platforms, identity and contribution can be faked, leading to trust issues and security vulnerabilities like Sybil attacks. IPSP's non-transferable points are tied to verifiable actions. Good luck trying to fake that! This builds a foundation of trust and enhances overall network security. Sayonara, Sybil Attacks!

Smart Rewards for Smart Contributions: Current systems often reward sheer volume – the more you post, the more you're noticed, regardless of content quality. IPSP changes the game by algorithmically valuing the quality of contributions. This encourages meaningful participation, fostering a more thoughtful and engaged community. And with a reputation system on steroids, your blockchain cred is as solid as it gets – think of it as your digital karma, hard to earn and impossible to fake. It's like having a smart cookie in the system that knows who's really contributing.

Active Participation Over Passive HODLing: In typical crypto ecosystems, holding (HODLing) tokens often gets more attention than active participation. IIPSP flips the script – here, it’s not about hoarding coins; it’s about being part of the action. Active participation is the new cool, binding the community like social glue and turning the network into a dynamic, engaged family. Imagine a platform where the better your content, the more you shine. No more low-effort memes for cheap upvotes. Well, maybe just a few...

Fair Play in the Digital Arena: The digital world is skewed towards those with more financial resources. IPSP levels this playing field. Here, it doesn't matter how thick your wallet is; what counts is the value of your contributions, ensuring fair opportunities for recognition and influence regardless of economic status. Trading and speculation are fun and all, but let’s focus on building, not just betting. Immutable Points are about adding value, not just trading it.

Data-Driven Innovation: A common problem in blockchain ecosystems is the underutilization of user data for innovation. IPSP turns user interactions into a goldmine of data, driving informed decision-making and fostering an environment ripe for innovation. This approach leverages user activity for continuous improvement and creativity. When you reward innovation, you get more of it. It’s like a hackathon, but all the time.

Regulatory Smarts & Universal Access: Balancing innovation with regulation is tricky. Many blockchain platforms struggle with this, leading to accessibility issues. IPSP is designed to be both regulatory compliant and universally accessible, breaking down barriers for widespread adoption while staying within regulatory frameworks. With non-financial points, even the most regulation-happy governments might just give us a thumbs up.

Sustainable Growth, Not Speculative Frenzy: The blockchain world is often caught up in speculation, overshadowing real, sustainable growth. IPSP focuses on long-term value creation, encouraging behaviors that contribute to the ecosystem's health and longevity rather than short-term speculative gains. We’re in this for the marathon, not the sprint. Immutable Points align with the ethos of sustainable growth.

The only missing piece for this reality to emerge in 2024 is a standard to interoperate all those meta-currencies, so they become universally recognized and useful across networks, like tokens. A shared language for the contextual computation of value signals.

After extensive research and development in this domain and conversations with hundreds of the top minds in the crypto-space via our platform Newforum, we are excited to announce the release of the Immutable Points Standard Protocol (IPSP). An open-source way of coding, deploying, composing and computing meta-currencies for a wide diversity of purposes.

Core Concepts

IPSP is a composable and modular open-source standard. It comes with templates and pre-built parameters that can be leveraged to automate the issuance of points based on sets of conditions. Its structure is made of Triggers, Interactions and Algorithms.

Triggers

Triggers initiate the issuance of points. The trigger can be:

Wallet Triggers: A keypair is allowed to distribute Immutable Points based on offchain decisions, which can be human or mechanistic via an API.

Smart Contract Triggers: Create rules-based Immutable Points issuance that responds to specific on-chain actions or criteria such as NFT sales, DAO votes and many more.

Oracle-Based Triggers: Utilize oracles to connect smart contracts with off-chain or cross-chain data. This allows for the issuance of points based on a wide range of external criteria, enhancing the versatility of the system.

Points

Issuance: The issuance of points is permissionless. Anyone can create their points and distribute them using different types of triggers. They are similar to token balances as they can be accumulated by blockchain wallets. The main difference is that they can't be transferred and therefore are not tradable.

Context: Points are meaningful because they represent specific merits. Those merits are documented through the issuance of credentials that link to a context file. Each issuance event generates a Verifiable Credential which is compliant with the W3C DiD standard.

The context file is providing general information about the conditions through which the points are issued. It includes:

• The intent behind the points.

• A description of the trigger and the parameters.

• The type of merits they aim to represent.

• The issuer identity and link to its reputation.

• The parameters of the trigger Eg. the JOKERACE Points are issued based on the amount of votes received by contestants on the Jokerace DAO. All those parameters are decided by the issuer.

Composability

• With Smart Contracts: Triggers and points are composable and can be integrated as part of your smart contracts or include sets of conditions such as multi-signature, dependencies or different forms of mechanism design involving the triggering or verification of points.

• With other Points: Each point can be used as a parameter in a way that interacts with other Triggers, and can be used as thresholds, multipliers, caps in order to achieve desired goals. Eg. in order to get GUILD Points you need at least 100 GITCOIN Points. Or all your OPENSEA Points are multiplied by your ZORA Points.

• With Algorithms: Points can be aggregated, analyzed, processed or augmented by algorithms leveraging optimistic decentralized compute networks and generate composite points as an output. This layer unlocks more sophisticated and holistic computations from Eigenvalue centrality, Eigentrust, Anomaly Detection, to advanced machine learning models aiming at supporting the goals of each system including spam prevention, discoverability for social networks and many more use cases.

Open Source and Community-Driven

We believe in the power of community and open-source collaboration. All code in the Immutable Points Standard Protocol is freely available for use, modification, and distribution. We encourage contributions, feedback, and novel implementations to broaden the protocol's applicability and impact.

Practical Applications and Impact

The versatility of IPSP opens up a plethora of applications across various domains. From decentralized governance and social media platforms to academic recognition and content creation, IPSP paves the way for a more nuanced and equitable system of value recognition. It empowers users to earn points for meaningful contributions, fostering an environment where quality and participation are key.

In the crypto-space, IPSP stands to transform the dynamics of blockchain networks, moving beyond mere financial transactions to a more holistic understanding of value. This shift not only democratizes influence in these spaces but also aligns incentives with long-term, sustainable contributions, heralding a new era of growth and innovation in the blockchain ecosystem.

The launch of IPSP is more than just a technological milestone; it's a step towards a new internet, one that values contribution, creativity, and collaboration, laying the groundwork for a more inclusive and equitable digital future.