Kredits

Kredits are an experimental bonus system for contributors. They are cryptographic tokens, stored on the Ethereum blockchain, issued and managed via smart contracts.

Anyone can create an Ethereum wallet via e.g. metamask.io and start receiving kredits for contributions of any kind. People can also send their own kredits to each other if and when they like.

For now kredits are just a fun experiment and gaming element, but the long-term idea is that they can be rewarded with BTC dividends, in case the Kosmos project/org will be in a financial position that allows it to reward everybody who contributed to its success. There's also a variety of other possible use cases, like e.g. a public offering via kredit sales. (see Crypto Equity)

Software

Kredits Contracts

kredits-contracts contains the smart contracts, written in Solidity, as well as the generated contract ABI for use with the Web3 JavaScript library (e.g. in kredits-web). It can be linked from other programs via npm.

Kredits Web

kredits-web is the Web UI for the public Kredits dashboard and management UI. The app is hosted on 5apps Deploy at kredits.kosmos.org.

Hubot Kredits

hubot-kredits is a chatbot, which can automatically propose kredit issuance, e.g. based on GitHub contributions, wiki edits, etc.

Democratic governance via Kredits

Kredits have the potential to be used for distributed governance of the Kosmos project and organization. The basic idea is that people can vote on decisions with a vote that carries a weight according to their contributions. In short: the people who do should decide. With a limited set of basic rules, this makes for a revolutionary new approach to governance.

Rules / parameters

1. Voting Kredits are only issued for contributions to the project to the person who contributes.
2. As soon as the person transfers the Kredits to a different entity, the Kredits lose their votes. This way investors and speculators can never acquire voting rights by just buying someone's Kredits.
3. Kredit votes lose weight over time. For example 30% per year. This ensures that people who contributed a lot at a certain time, but then don't contribute for a longer time, cannot influence the project as much as people who are currently contributing/doing. The Kredits still retain their normal value/dividends, but voting weight decreases until the point of having non-voting Kredits after a few years.
4. Voting Kredit holders can put decisions to a vote at any point in time. Some reasonable rules have to be established to prevent trolling and resource/time waste.

Ideas

• Leaderboard for contributions/kredits, where people can choose to publish their name or not (based on actual blockchain data) WIP, almost done: https://kredits.kosmos.org/
• Some way for new contributors to claim kredits sent to them via email link or similar (Update: current idea is to issue them without the need for an address, then be able to confirm address change via GitHub OAuth and admin action/proposal)
• IRC bot for small transactions, so people can send each other kredits on Kosmos project channels
• Custom wallet, removing all unncesseary features and integrating custom features we'd like to have (like e.g. easy multisig transactions, linked/initiated from a Kosmos chatroom) WIP, almost done: https://github.com/67P/kredits-web/ (tokens can be sent via normal ETH wallets)
• Contribution Dashboard for regular Kredit distribution as well as general project stats
• Expense management, similar to https://opencollective.com/learn-more

Similar projects/ideas

• Colony -- "The Colony Beta is for teams who want to create their own “Collaboration Network”—a place to work with, incentivize, and track the contributions of a network of collaborators. It combines task management with “payments” and tracking."
• ether-camp/virtual asselerator -- "The Virtual Accelerator is a platform that allows for the promotion, testing and funding of ideas. " HackerGold is their token.
• boardroom.to -- A blockchain based governance platform.
• Lunyr -- "Lunyr is an Ethereum-based decentralized crowdsourced encyclopedia which rewards users with app tokens for peer-reviewing and contributing information."
• Singulardtv -- "A Blockchain Entertainment Studio, Smart Contract Rights Management Platform and Video On-Demand Portal"

see also:

• TokenMarket -- "Trade and research 152 digital assets. Organize crowdsales."
• Tokens on Ethereum about Ethereum based tokens by ConsenSys

Similar code/inspirations/links

• Lynyr contracts
• minime contracts
• gnosis-contracts
• melonproject contracts