Project Name
Tribourse
Problem Statement
Many online communities lack transparent, liquid mechanisms for members to gain, trade, and realize value in their contributions. Contributors (moderators and content creators) struggle to capture their impact in tangible rewards. As a result, communities miss out on deeper engagement and fail to democratize ownership.
Solution Overview
Tribourse introduces tradable community tokens that behave like stock-market shares: each community issues its token, members earn tokens for specific contributions (posts, votes, event hosting), and tokens trade on a peer-to-peer marketplace. By combining robust contribution tracking, built-in mechanisms to ensure genuine value, a real-time order book designed to mitigate volatility, and governance rights tied to token holdings, Tribourse aligns incentives, enhances engagement, and democratizes decision-making while addressing key challenges around token stability and regulatory compliance.
Project Description
Tribourse is a Web3 platform where each online community (“Tribe”) mints or imports its own ERC-20 community token. Core features include automated minting of tokens for defined contribution actions (e.g., upvotes, content milestones), a peer-to-peer decentralized exchange for trading Tribe tokens, and on-chain governance modules that grant voting rights proportional to token holdings. Tribes are flexible, allowing members to customize their governance and token structure to reflect their unique culture and goals. Users interact via a unified dashboard: track earned tokens, place buy/sell orders on the order book, stake tokens for governance proposals, and view real-time liquidity metrics.
Addressing Key Challenges:
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Mitigating Extreme Token Volatility: We employ several strategies to promote stability and tie token value to community activity rather than pure speculation:
- Pure P2P Order Matching: Our DEX relies solely on matching buy and sell orders posted by community members. There is no automated market maker (AMM) liquidity pool subject to common arbitrage risks. Price movements are dictated purely by direct counterparty interest, helping speculative bubbles “dry up” without genuine community-driven demand or supply.
- Built-In Vesting Module: Newly minted tokens can optionally be subject to a vesting schedule (e.g., linear unlock over 30–90 days). This discourages immediate “mint + dump” behavior, aligning contributors’ incentives with the long-term health and value creation of the community.
- Composable ERC-2535 Proxy Architecture: Each Tribe’s token contract utilizes the ERC-2535 Diamond standard. This allows communities to easily integrate custom “facets” (modules) for additional stabilization measures if desired, such as bonding-curve buyback mechanisms, dynamic fee adjustments based on market conditions, reserve-backed price bands, or even community-governed circuit breakers during extreme events.
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Ensuring Genuine, Non-Gaming Contributions: To prevent gaming, bot activity, or coordinated manipulation in contribution-based token minting:
- Skin in the Game: Before submitting a contribution action eligible for token rewards (like posting content or voting), users must lock up a small stake (e.g., 5–10% of the potential reward) in a smart contract escrow.
- Slashing on Abuse: If the contribution is subsequently flagged through community moderation or automated audits as fraudulent, spam, low-quality bulk actions, or bot-generated, the staked tokens are forfeited. These forfeited tokens can be redistributed to honest participants or returned to the community treasury.
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Scalable Multi-Token, Multi-Governance UX: Handling potentially hundreds or thousands of unique Tribe tokens and governance structures is managed through:
- The Graph for Fast, Flexible Queries: We utilize The Graph to index essential on-chain data such as the Tribe registry, user token balances across different Tribes, order book events, and governance proposals. The frontend efficiently queries these subgraphs to present only the data relevant to the user’s current Tribe and activity.
- Dynamic ABI & Module Loading: The application dynamically fetches the specific smart contract Application Binary Interface (ABI) and corresponding UI components based on the selected Tribe. This modular approach allows us to support new or custom governance rules and token logic simply by having their ABIs registered, avoiding rigid, hard-coded frontend logic.
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Navigating Potential Securities Regulation: We acknowledge the complexity given the tradable nature and governance rights of tokens.
- Hackathon Scope: For this hackathon, we will treat our community tokens strictly as utility tokens. Their primary design purpose is to enable participation in community governance and access specific features or privileges within that particular Tribe’s ecosystem. We are not presenting them as financial instruments or investment opportunities.
- Clear Disclaimers: The platform and associated materials will prominently feature disclaimers stating that the tokens are for utility and participation, not investment.
- Basic Compliance Measures (Planned): While potentially beyond the hackathon MVP scope, our roadmap includes exploring and potentially implementing basic compliance considerations such as KYC/AML checks (where applicable) and on-chain whitelisting to restrict access to eligible participants and deter unauthorized secondary market activity outside the platform’s controlled environment.
- Future Legal Engagement: Should Tribourse gain significant traction post-hackathon, we are committed to engaging with experienced legal counsel and regulators to thoroughly assess the appropriate classification of Tribe tokens in relevant jurisdictions. If necessary, we would explore transitioning towards a compliant security token framework, potentially through registered or exempt offerings, depending on legal guidance, jurisdiction, and project scale.
Under the hood, Tribourse leverages Hyperion for scalability and high throughput, IPFS for decentralized content storage, and The Graph for efficient data querying. What excites us most is unlocking a liquid economy for community builders and participants, transforming digital social capital into real economic value, and fostering self-sustaining ecosystems where contributors share in long-term success, all while building a responsible and sustainable platform.
Community Engagement Features
Testable Tasks & Features
Create a Community: Mint a new token and set basic tokenomics, including optional vesting schedules. (50 points)
Contribute Content: Submit a post or resource and earn initial tokens, demonstrating the ‘skin in the game’ mechanism (if implemented in demo). (20 points per contribution, up to 100)
Trade Tokens: Place a buy or sell order on the integrated P2P DEX order book. (30 points)
Governance Vote: Participate in a mock proposal vote using tokens, illustrating the governance module. (25 points)
Refer a Friend: Invite a user who completes at least one task, simulating user growth. (40 points per referral)
Points System
Tasks are weighted by impact and complexity.
Accumulated points convert into bonus airdrops of community tokens or platform-wide perks (e.g., fee waivers), further aligning incentives with platform engagement.
Gamification Mechanics
Leaderboard: Public display of top contributors, traders, and governance participants.
Badges & Levels: Unlock “Founding Member,” “Top Trader,” and “Governance Guru” statuses based on activity and token holdings/usage.
Timed Challenges: Weekly “Trading Sprint” or “Content Blitz” with extra token multipliers or point bonuses.
Onboarding Incentives
Users see immediate rewards for small actions, fostering habit formation. Leaderboards and badges tap social recognition and friendly competition, while token airdrops for points anchor real-world value and introduce users to the core economic loop.
Getting Involved
Join our Discord: Engage with the core team, share ideas, and receive project updates.
Feedback Surveys: Test early prototypes and influence the roadmap through structured feedback.
@Fon - founder