Hi @garlet. Thank you for the comments.
I understand you are concerned about your data privacy and you are not comfortable with it. As a cryptocurrency enthusiast, I feel the same way too. However, we are unable to build TORUM on any decentralized network, including Hive blockchain, because the decentralized tech is not mature enough to support and house a data-exhaustive application like TORUM.
As clearly stated in our whitepaper, we will begin decentralizing the entire platform starting from our fourth development era — Maturitas. Depending on the decentralized tech’s maturity, we might develop our own blockchain or just proceed to use another blockchain if there is a suitable one. We will be placing full priority on data privacy, censorship-resistance, etc at that point.
But, we do pledge that we will not be using our Landers’ (we called ourselves Landers on TORUM btw) data in our whitepaper. For example, we will not be running any form of programmatic advertising on TORUM in the future. As long as it uses our Landers’ data, we will refrain ourselves from it.
About the issue of usefulness, I would respectfully ask that you don’t relate TORUM to Ponzi Schemes. Ponzis promise you fixed return and lucrative investment. I can assure that you will not find or hear such nonsense from TORUM. Ultimately, the usefulness of XTM depends on the community. If no one is on TORUM, even the best feature of using XTM becomes useless.
In fact, TORUM is meant to solve crypto Ponzi Schemes because we want to connect cryptocurrency enthusiasts and leverage on our network power to combat this issue. While we are open to criticisms, being related to Ponzi schemes is quite a big no-no.
You asked about our whitepaper, I have attached our English whitepaper V1.0 here (we do not have Italian translation at this moment, sorry about that) : https://whitepaper.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/torum-whitepaper-V1.0-EN.pdf
You raised concern about our business model. Our business model surrounds our ERC-20 utility token — XTM. We realize that the existing coins rely too much on hype to survive and hype is not sustainable. By building an entire ecosystem of utility around XTM, we are able to create sustainable value back to XTM.
For example, you want to bid for an ad slot on TORUM (this feature is still far from release), you will need to bid using XTM. I use this example because you mentioned advertising in your comment.
Having a token that has value (XTM), we can minimize advertising and promotion effort because our Lander community will spread TORUM on their own. It might take some time for TORUM to become widespread, but word-of-mouth marketing is a solid and effective way of promoting (I am sure you agree with this). This answers your concern on how we grow mainstream.
Earnings can come in many ways for TORUM. For example, we will be having an integrated cryptocurrency exchange in our next phase, so there is revenue whenever our Lander is trading. The advertising bidding is also an example. If you are afraid to lose the bid, you will proceed to buy XTM from the market. You see, the demand logic is there. The community is the last puzzle to TORUM’s success.
About the Bot and Spam issues, we are aware of the challenges before we start our project. We are implementing a reporting feature and intend to include the community to maintain the content and Lander quality on TORUM. Imagine the community itself is responsible for regulating the community.
On a side note, TORUM NEVER EVER intends to be another Facebook or Twitter. Our vision is to become the central social gathering hub for the crypto space. This means TORUM and other mainstream social media will exist together without any competition. We are meant for crypto communities and projects, not for the normies.
If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them. I hope that you will not let your personal opinion get in your way. If you do not want to verify your email address or phone number, you are perfectly free to do so. You may put random characters and numbers in your registration.
Thank you. Hope you have a good day ahead. (Sorry I don’t know how to write in Italian, so I have to use English)
Hi @Torum.
First of all thanks to you for the answer that I honestly did not expect.
This honors you and deserves my apologies if I left superficial criticisms in the comment, although I have always admitted that I don't know your project in detail.
I had many doubts raised by the registration page which had gross errors, from the question of the obligation of the telephone number which then paved the way for prejudices against too many scam projects in the crypto world.
I take note of your observations and explanations and I will read your whitepapers carefully. Thanks for giving it.
I hope your project is not a scam and is not a ponzi scheme. It will be your job to prove it over time.
I still have doubts about economic sustainability, for the reasons I have expressed.
Advertising seen by people who are paid to do so has little economic value. In this case it will be your job to convince people to stay on your social network not just to make money.
The battle against BOTs and spam will instead be very difficult. Let me suggest a similar system to reputation on Hive. Unless you have already done so: as mentioned I have not yet entered your social network.
I appreciate that you don't want to be like Facebook & C.
In consideration of the possibility of entering without verifying the phone number I will try your social network: as I said in my first comment I am a very curious person of all the new social phenomena on the web.
However, I still think that you would do better not to make the telephone number required in the registration form and invite people to "cheat" by entering a fake number.
I apologize for my english. I hope to be understandable.
Good Job.
Your concern is totally understandable. The reason why we asked for mobile number is because TORUM has an integrated cryptocurrency exchange. The info that you provided is directly linked to the exchange, and it will be used in the KYC process of the exchange in the future (Landers get to choose whether they want to perform the KYC or not). That is why we let Landers provide the info first, so they don't need to bother themselves doing it in the future.
Reputation system is one of the cool ideas we are exploring. We are looking at what other crypto social platforms like Uptrennd are doing too.
And what you said is absolutely spot on. At the end of the day, only time will prove TORUM is not a Ponzi schemes or any shady projects you can see in the crypto space.
About the concern of fake numbers, Landers are incentivized to verify their mobile number they provided on TORUM. For example, we have to verify our account before we can start doing missions on TORUM. If Landers provide fake numbers, well we can be sure that they can't participate in the mission system.
If you have any questions after reading our whitepaper, feel free to share them. I might not always be active on PeakD, but I always find some time to stay active on Hive.