01coin Takeover and Change Proposal

Table of Contents

1 Background

ZOC was introduced on Bitcointalk on February 2018. Since that time The wallet has not been updated a single time and the developers have disappeared. The community still wants this coin to succeed and is willing to work on a new future for this coin.

2 What does this document say? TL:DR

We will change ZOC to be 100% community focused. As community members are trusted they will receive power to make and propose changes. The community will decide about the features and spending.

3 Mission and Vision

To create a transparent, community-focused coin with an ideological standpoint. There will be no premine and no extra benefits for the original creators.

4 FAQ

Q: Will I get to keep my ZOC? A: Yes, we’ll not be doing a coinswap for ZOC; we’re taking over control.

Q: Will the developer be able to dump his premine coins? A: No, we will burn his premine or disable it.

Q: How are you going to convince exchanges and pools to use your wallet? A: I have clearly and openly given the original developers an ultimatum on their GitHub and on Bitcointalk. The exchanges and pools will be willing to cooperate as long as we can show how the old devs have clearly been negligent.

Q: Will ZOC get a new name? A: Probably not.

Q: Will … Change? A: Everything not mentioned will stay the same as it was.

5 The problems

During and after the takeover we’ll have to face a few challenges. First we’ll talk about these challenges. This paper should provide a solution to all these problems.

5.1 Transparency and trust

ZOC, like many coins, has a willing community that wants to make the coin great. But developers are bad at communicating and have abandoned the project. They may have scammed the users and run away with the money. This has happened to many coins before and people are becoming more and more wary of supporting new projects.

5.2 Teams fall short

Creating and maintaining a coin and it’s community is a multidisciplinary job.

  • Designers
  • Developers (app, web, desktop, blockchain)
  • System engineers
  • App developers
  • Web developers
  • Community managers
  • Translators
  • And more

All in all many different people are needed. The average team has a hard time nailing three or four of these parts.

5.3 Closedness

Open source is a pretty common practice in software development. But it’s a well-known fact that open source does not mean open to changes. As a user, it’s nice to be able to see the source code, but it’s better to be able to make changes! Like Richard Stallman says, “Free as in freedom, not free as in free beer."

If we take this principle and apply it to the whole project, and not just to the source code. This means community members should be able to change documentation, hierarchy, roadmaps, etc.

6 Always trust, but be suspicious

In business people have to work together all the time. There is a certain amount of trust needed to do this effectively. While you may wish to be able to trust co-workers or employees to be “perfect,” you must be wary of intentional or unintentional mistakes. That’s why you build trust and give power over time. But whatever you do, you always have a safety net (backups, version control, etc.).

For 01coin this means as community members prove their value to the project they will be assigned more and more important roles. But there should always be safeguards. No-one should be able to take destructive, non-reversible actions. At a certain point people should also be trusted to trust. This means you allow members to assign roles themselves. It’s like saying, “Because I trust you, I trust who you trust.” This way you’ll create a “Chain of Trust” similar to that used in computer security certificate authority (CA).

The trust and empowerment members will receive does not only apply to Discord or being able to participate in advanced governance structures, or invitations to review code. It has to apply to every product 01coin will produce. From whitepapers to websites to development projects, the community should be in control.

7 Community fund

Why should one developer or one team be in control of all the funds? For a decentralized currency we give an absurd amount of power to the developers by allowing them a premine. Many times the reason for a premine is to serve as a fund to pay for exchanges and other costs. One option for a community fund would be to donate towards a central wallet from where it can be spent. This would rely on the generosity of a few people in the community. Most people would probably not feel inclined to give, especially when they have their funds locked into masternodes. So relying on donations is not a good idea.

Therefore the following proposal:

Why not instamine coins into a wallet whenever there is a need for them. The masternodes will vote whether a certain address will receive a certain amount. This way, instead of individuals paying, the whole community will pay a little bit in the shape of inflation.

This system can be used to:

  • Pay for exchanges
  • Reward developers
  • Reward community members
  • Website hosting costs
  • Much more!

For example, say the community wants ZOC to get listed on a new exchange. For simplicity's sake, let's say the exchange will accept 1000 ZOC as a listing fee. The exchange first publishes their wallet address for all the community members to see. Then a vote is called to instamine 1000 ZOC into the target wallet. Now all masternodes will have the ability to vote for or against this action.

This method moves control away from the developers and places it in the hands of the community.

8 Feature voting

To be able to shape the coin into a useful currency for the community, the community will be able to propose ideas and vote on them. This way the community will be able to shape the platform to what they need it to be.

9 Starting a vote

To avoid a spam in votes only trusted users should be able to initiate a vote. The original group of trusted users can award the role of "trusted user" to anyone they deem worthy in Discord. And once they are awarded that role they too can award the role to other users, creating a network of trusted users who are then eligible to nominate proposals to be voted on.

10 GitHub 50% review

As developers contribute to the project and get involved they become trusted and will be added to the reviewers pool. As more reviewers become active the number of reviews required to release a new version will be increased. When developers become inactive for more then 2 months their access will be removed unless they explicitly ask not to be removed. This not only safeguards the code quality but also serves as a voting system for changes, as long as at least 50% of the developers agree on a change, they will be able to make it happen.

11 Roadmap

Stage 1

  • March 24th
    • Move the community to new channels (Discord/Bitcointalk/Twitter)
  • Before the end of March
    • Reach out to exchanges, pools, masternode sites to switch to our wallet
  • Before April 14th (asap)
    • Burn premine and release wallet

Stage 2

  • Before the end of April
    • Release explorer and new Bitcointalk post

Stage 3

  • Q2 through Q4 2018
    • Website
    • Whitepaper
    • Instamine voting system
    • More exchanges
    • More masternode listings
    • Implement Chain of Trust principles

Stage 4

  • 2019
    • More flexible voting system which will enable voting for features and more.
    • Wallets for Android, iOS and Web
Last updated on 16th Jan 2021